Lucky Me
by flawlesspeasant
Summary: AU: After having a tough time adjusting to life as a freshman in high school, Jo finally finds herself at peace. Just as she was getting comfortable, tragedy strikes and turns her world upside down; and she surely doesn't have time for a boyfriend... *References to every couple in this story, main focus on Jo/Alex*
1. It Doesn't Bother Me

**A/N:** _ I'm not sure how to do this, so I guess I'll start by introducing myself. Hey, I'm flawlesspeasant & I obviously write fanfiction. This is my first time writing Grey's Anatomy fanfiction, so I'm a little nervous and I'm still learning the ropes. I've written many stories before this one, mostly Camp Rock fanfiction. I'm nervous to expand my writing to such a larger fandom than I'm used to, and I'm still learning what Grey's fans like in stories and what they dislike in stories. I've been a fan of Grey's Anatomy since it first started. I was literally in third grade watching Grey's Anatomy, haha. _

_So I really hope you guys like this... and appreciate the first chapter. I'm fairly popular among my other readers, but I'm really trying to appeal to Grey's fans now. I'm a really nice person, so I do take suggestions. If you have any suggestions of what I should put in the story or take out, please let me know. You can leave suggestions in my PMs, in the reviews, and my name is lovaddington on twitter. Like I said, I'm new to this whole Grey's Anatomy fanfiction fandom, and I dont know exactly how this works. _

_So, um... about the story. I hope you guys like first person points of view! :) I won't let you in on who the narrator is just yet, but you'll find out SOON. (The narrator is my favorite Grey's character, aside from Meredith.)_

_Nice to meet you, I'm flawlesspeasant._

**Disclaimer: ** I do not own Grey's Anatomy nor the characters in it. I wish I did, but I promise I don't.

* * *

I collapse down on the bench and put my face in my hands, breathing heavily. I used to play soccer back in grade school, but I really don't remember it being this strenuous. If we play again on Monday, I vow to myself that I will beg and beg and beg until somebody finally lets up, to be the goalie. At least goalies can use their hands and they don't have to run that much. Either I'm really out of shape or it was really exhausting today, because my legs are burning. Now that I think about it, I'm probably out of shape. The only sport I ever attempted to play was soccer and I gave it up after my first game. I was also enrolled in gymnastics for a year, because I had so much energy nobody knew what to do with me. I gave that up too. Sports aren't really my thing, which is why I'm totally against gym class.

Around me, the big locker room starts filling up with the other girls in my class. Immediately, they start stripping themselves free of their sweaty gym clothes, and one of them turns on the old radio that hangs on the wall. They chatter and gossip about how we always lose and the games are never fair. I don't understand why they care so much about who wins or loses. Our gym class is co-ed and our teacher always splits us into boys vs. girls. We're girls. We'll never win. Steph, one of my good friends, tampers with the volume on the radio and turns it up so loud that everyone in the locker room can hear it.

_Seems like everybody's got a price; I wonder how they sleep at night, when the sale comes first and the truth comes second. Just stop for a minute and smile. Why is everybody so serious, acting so damn mysterious? Got shades on your eyes and your heels so high that you can't even have a good time. Everybody look to the left…everybody look to the right. Can you feel that, yeah? We're paying with love tonight._

"It's not about the money, money, money. We don't need your money, money, money. We just wanna make the world dance, forget about the price tag." I'm singing so low and monotonously that I don't even realize I'm actually singing. I honestly surprise myself when I know the lyrics to the crummy stuff that plays in here. I usually prefer songs darker and more "depressing" than the stuff that comes on the mainstream radio, but it doesn't mean I'm a dark and depressing person. I find that I've heard certain songs enough to catch onto the tune and memorize the lyrics; no matter if I like them or not. I'm not sure if there's any such thing as an "audiographic memory", but I clearly have it. It's kind of the opposite of a photographic memory, I think. I can't see things and memorize them instantly, but I can remember something I've heard with only seconds of hearing it. It's my "super-power", if that's what you want to call it.

Sighing, I stand up and pull my sweaty t-shirt over my head. I toss the sweaty shirt down on the bench next to my shoes and grab my deodorant. I'm not usually a heavy sweater, but today was just so strenuous that I couldn't help but sweat. Sweating makes me feel so disgusting and I'm usually too lazy to take a shower, so nine out of ten times I just deal with feeling gross. I pick up my purple Polo shirt and pull it over my head after I slip my arms through the armholes. I fold down the collar on it and make sure the breast-pocket is perfectly aligned.

I wish it wasn't against the dress code to walk around in shorts like the ones I'm wearing, because I really can't fathom putting on jeans right now. My legs are sticky and sweaty and I just don't feel like squeezing and wiggling my way into a pair of jeans. I sit back down on the bench and start dragging a brush through my long, dark brown hair. If I don't brush my hair after I've sweat the way I just did, it would get all wavy and gross looking and the entire two hours I spent straightening it last night would have gone to waste.

Next to me, Heather sits down and starts brushing her hair too. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but I really think she's mocking me. Heather has short hair that just barely touches the nape of her neck. She dramatically goes through the motions of brushing her hair, dragging her arm down with the brush further, even after her hair stops. I'm not 100% sure that she's mimicking me, so I just brush it off. Whatever if she is.

"'Scuse my reach." Steph apologizes as she reaches across my nude body to switch the station on the rundown boom box. I don't necessarily mind Steph reaching across me to change the station as much as I mind the fact that she's nearly naked, donning only a black bra and yellow underwear. Being my closest friend, Steph knows that I'm already having trouble with the people in our grade thinking that I'm gay. I'm not gay, by the way. I'm not interested in boys nearly as much as I'm interested in getting good grades, but I'm not gay. I can just hear the rumors starting already, just by her reaching across my body like that. I have nothing—nothing at all against gay people. I do have two gay friends; one male and one female. I'm not gay though, and I don't exactly appreciate the rumors going around that I am what I'm not.

The new radio station kicks fast into gear and Heather stands up to turn it up. I guess she likes this song. I particularly don't like it, but again, I'm not partial to just one type of music.

_We run things, things don't run we. We don't take nothin' from nobody and we can't stop… and we won't stop. Can't you see it's we who own the night? Can't you see it's we who're bout that life yeah._

Putting the thought of what Steph just did aside, I slide my size six blue jeans onto my lap and unsnap the button. "It's our party we can say what we want to! It's our party we can do what we want to!" Steph playfully sings the next line of the current song in my ear with a squeaky, high pitched voice and leans across my back as I attempt to shove my feet into the legs of my jeans. I can't help but laugh. Steph is undoubtedly my best friend. I tell her just about everything. I'm not her best friend, though. I'm nobody's best friend, except maybe Shane's, which is oddly fine with me. I don't even get considered for things like that. I don't really like to think of myself as "clique-y" or whatever, but I guess I am. I'll never fit in with Steph's clique, so I guess I'm just better off hanging out with her whenever it's convenient for her. I'm not at all upset that I'm not in the popular clique, either. Heather and Leah both dislike me, for reasons I don't know. Steph says that they just think I'm "weird", but if you've ever met Heather, you'd know that she is about ten pounds past weird on the weirdness scale

"I'd like to get dressed to go eat my lunch, if you don't mind." Mirroring Steph's playfulness, I shrug her off my back and stand up to pull my pants up. I button them around my waist and zip the zipper. Changing for gym class has to be the worst policy ever made. Seriously, what ever happened to the elementary days when we would take gym class in whatever our mothers (or grandmothers, in my case) dressed us in? At least back in elementary school, girls weren't so self-conscious about what they look like half-naked in front of their peers. Really, I'd change in one of the two stalls we have in our locker rooms, but the two heavier set girls in our class change in there.

I'm not heavy-set or anything like that, I'm just a bit… curvy, to say the least. My thighs touch and I don't have a thigh gap, my waist is a size six, my bust is somewhere between a high c-cup and a low d-cup and I stand at five foot, five inches tall. Leah is slightly taller than me, by like a couple inches or something, but she's also way thinner. She's so thin that she's the one that's thrown on top of the pyramids at pep-rallies. Heather is the shortest at like 5'3 or something like that and Steph is just perfectly average. They all have something that makes them special, then there's me; plain and uninteresting.

Steph has her dark brown skin, perfect physique, wildly curly hair and sophisticated black glasses to make her stand out. Leah's got dirty blonde hair and piercing dark grey eyes to set her off. She's blonde, that's all I've got to say. And Heather is so tiny and perfect, with her shorter, pixie-cut, light brown hair. Me? I've got brunette hair, slightly tanned, white skin and a rounded, pudgy figure. My eyes are pretty, I guess. They're the strangest mixture of green and brown; hazel almost. I can't be a cheerleader or anything like that, because I have the athletic ability of a turtle. I'm always picked last on the teams in gym class and that's fine with me. I know I'm un-athletic and what I lack in athletic ability I make up for with my scholarly talent. At least that's what my grandma always tells me.

"Steph, a bunch of us are coming to my house after the game tonight." The sound of Leah's voice breaks my quaint little thoughts as if she's directing her conversation to me. I don't try to, but I can't help but eavesdrop. It's not like Leah's voice is quiet or anything. She's naturally loud so I couldn't ignore her if I tried. "We're just gonna watch movies… maybe play a couple rounds of 21, with Heather's cards… you in or you out?" Leah's dark grey eyes glance over at me then fixate themselves back on Steph.

"Yeah, I'm totally in. What time?" Steph yanks her curly black hair out of the sloppy ponytail she had it in and starts dragging a comb through it. "Should I count on leaving the game early?"

"You can just come the game with me and Heather. My brother's driving us and we'll just make room for you. It's no biggie." My eyes instinctively squint at Leah's words and I can literally feel my cheeks flushing bright red. _Sure, Steph can just go to the game with you and Heather, Leah._ _It's not like we made plans to go to the game together like we do EVERY away game_. I can't help my sarcastic thoughts when it comes to Leah.

"I'm already going to the game with—"

"No, don't worry about it." I interrupt her before she even gets my name out of her mouth. When I think about it, Steph and I _are w_ith each other every single Friday night. She never gets the chance to hang out with Leah, Heather and the rest of her cheerleader friends on Fridays because she's always with me, especially when the games are away games. The cheerleaders don't cheer at away games, so Steph and I usually go to away games with her sister. "I'm just going to stay in and clean my room tonight anyway, Steph. Go on…" I wave her off and begin stuffing my dirty gym clothes in my drawstring bag so I can take them home and wash them. I use my fingers to comb through my hair to make it seem like it's really not a problem for Steph to go with Heather and Leah.

"Are you sure? We've gone to every home game together since eighth grade year. It's not a big deal for me to just go with them afterwards." Steph makes it almost impossible to get mad at her about ditching me. I don't ever take real offense to it, because it's not like she does it maliciously. She always asks me if I'm truly okay with it, I tell her yes and she ditches me. It doesn't really bother me too much. It used to, but now I don't really mind. As I got older, I realized that I probably wouldn't fit in much with the cheerleaders anyway.

"Yeah, I'm sure. My gram's been riding my back about cleaning my room and washing my clothes since last weekend, so I'll probably just sit in and do that. You go have fun. We're together every single Friday." I lazily slide my feet into my pair of white flip-flops and adjust my hair with my fingers again. I look up and meet Stephanie's eyes. She's looking at me like she's waiting for me to crack and tell her that I'm not okay with it. "Seriously, Steph...It's fine. Seriously."

"…Alright." She takes my word for it, leaving me with nothing more than a pet from the crown of my head to the middle of my back where my hair stops. When Steph gets bored, she almost always plays with my hair. She's always weaving some kind of braid into it. She claims that her hair isn't long enough to do much with it, and mine is, which is why she's always trying to do something "pretty" with mine.

Stephanie swears that I'm the prettiest girl in our entire grade, and I swear that she's out of her mind. She's just fascinated with the natural length and thickness of my hair, my hazel eyes and the beauty mark next to my mouth. Those are the only things that she finds "pretty" about me. According to her, the way I feel about myself is how others feel about me, but I think she's wrong about that. She thinks that I think I'm ugly and that's not true. Other people think don't really look my way, but I don't think I'm ugly. I could be worse looking, and actually, a lot of people (mostly older people) have told me that I've got a pretty face. So Steph's wrong about that.

I sling my drawstring bag over my shoulders and onto my back and start walking towards the door to go to lunch. I find myself blindly mouthing the lyrics to/singing along to the song that's playing on the radio again. "We're going down, down in an earlier round. Sugar we're going down swingin'. I'll be your number one with a bullet. A loaded god complex, cock it and pull it." I push open the heavy wooden door to the steps and sigh as I walk up to the lunch room.

* * *

"Oooh… they have tuna noodle casserole today." Shane snatches the tray I just picked up from the pile out of my hands and cuts me in line. "Wonder if they'll let me buy extra." He picks up a fruit cup and a pint of chocolate milk and slides the stolen tray down the line so the cafeteria workers can serve him. I just roll my eyes at him and give him a playful punch in the shoulder as I pick up another tray from the pile and load it with carrot sticks and a bottle of water.

I turn my nose up at him, just on instinct. "Yuck. I can't believe I actually have to watch you eat that crap." I load my own tray with just a single banana and a pint-sized bottle of water. I usually just give my water to Shane for him to drink, but I'm actually thirsty this time so I think I'll just keep it. I usually give it to him because he prefers water over milk and the water is way overpriced at the vending machines. Having a milk allergy permits me to get my water for free. I remember when my gram used to curse the cafeteria manager out because she kept charging me for water. Turns out the manager thought that I was lactose intolerant, which isn't the case. I have a literal milk allergy. I don't swell up or anything; my tongue just gets all bumpy and blistery and it sucks. I used to break out in a serious rash when I was a baby over it, so the tongue thing is a nice alternative. I do have an occasional ice cream cone, though.

"Cafeteria food actually isn't that bad. You wouldn't know because you never even give it a chance, Princess. You eat so many chicken nuggets, you're gonna turn into a chicken nugget." He sasses me back and lets the cashier ring him up for his lunch. I don't really understand why the cashier still has to ring him up even though he gets free lunches. Shane has two younger brothers and no father, so since his mother is the only income, he doesn't have to pay for school lunches. I still remember the day he found out his dad died. His mom came and picked him up from school and it was just really sad. He didn't speak to me for a week, but I understood.

I hand the cashier a ten dollar bill that should cover my lunch for the rest of the week and follow Shane over to our usual table, right next to the trashcans. I like sitting next to the garbage cans because I don't have to get up and walk far to the nearest one when I'm finished eating. "What'd I tell you about calling me 'Princess'? You hate it when I call you Shaney, and I don't do it. I should start though." Immediately after I sit down across from Shane, I dunk one of my five chicken nuggets into some ketchup and shove it in my mouth. "…What are you doing tonight?" I ask him, mouth full of chewed up chicken.

"Kelly works the graveyard shift tonight, so I'm on child duty." He eats a heaping spoonful of the crap that's on his tray and takes his time chewing it up. He and his mother must have had an argument this morning because the only time he calls his mom "Kelly" is when he's mad at her. "Speaking of…" Swallowing the food in his mouth, he reaches across the table with his bony, yet hefty hand to grab onto my wrist while I'm in the middle of putting another nugget in my mouth. I glare at him for that. "I have no idea how to make lasagna…"

The corners of my mouth turn up into a smile like they always do when I'm fighting to stay serious about something. "That sounds like a personal problem, Shaney." I shrug my wrist out of his grip and finish what I started by putting the chicken nugget in my mouth. If I had a nickel for every time someone assumed that Shane and I were dating, I'd be a billionaire by now. Sure, Shane and I are very close with one another and we do have a brother/sister relationship, but he is hopelessly in love with a senior that literally doesn't even know he exists. Me? I don't really like anyone in that way.

Shane's not ugly or anything like that, I just think it'd be awfully weird to date him. He is LITERALLY like my brother. He was the first person I met when I first came to live with my grandma. He lives three houses down from me and we used to play with each other a whole lot. I grew up rather tomboyish and Shane always had the newest HotWheels and Tonka trucks. We used to play "cops and robbers" together and we've had so many sleepovers, I've lost count. We've only had one major fight in our friendship, and we've known each other since we were five. When were seven, I got my first Barbie doll from my grandmother and I wanted to play Barbies with him. He wasn't into Barbies, of course, and he called me a "sissy" for wanting to play with girl toys. I kicked him in his shin and threw mud at him and he stuck a big wad of Bubblicious Bubble Gum in my hair. My grandma used a whole jar of peanut butter to get the gum out without having to cut it. She made me bake chocolate chip cookies (with her help) and take them to Shane to apologize for kicking him in the shin and throwing mud at him. Shane's mom told him that he HAD to invite me over to go swimming because gum is extremely hard to get out of hair. Shane ate my cookies, I swam in his pool and we've been best friends ever since.

"Come on, J." He looks at me with his brown eyes clearly begging. I know he's serious when he calls me by something that alludes to my actual name. With Shane, I'm usually "Princess", "Ponytail" or "Sis." He knows that I still feel really bad about his dad's death, and he plays on my sympathy an awful lot. I had only met Shane's dad once or twice. He was a truck driver, so he was hardly ever home. He seemed like a nice man both times I met him. "Matt and Nick used to love my dad's lasagna… I don't think I can even make it like he used to."

"…You're sick; using your dead father to get in my good graces!" Still smiling at him, I just shake my head. "Just make sure your door is open for me. I'll be over around five. You're so lucky I like you." I sit back in my chair and pick up my banana. "Oh crap… I can't, Shane. I really can't." I totally forgot about having to clean my room. "Unless you want to come to my house after school and help me clean my room, I probably won't be able to come over…"

"I'll help you clean."

"Are you serious?"

"As serious as a heart attack. I really need you to help me out tonight. I can handle it when she needs me to make hamburgers for dinner, or even hot dogs. But I can't make an entire pan of lasagna by myself." He swishes a fork around inside his fruit cup. "Plus, when you cook dinner for us, we always get dessert."

I roll my eyes hard at him. "Alright. I'll cook tonight, but you HAVE to help me clean up my room. If I don't get my room clean tonight, my gram is gonna have my head. She's been asking me for weeks to clean it up." I take a small bite of banana and rest my chin in the palm of my hand. "You should also thank Stephanie for blowing me off tonight. I was supposed to go to the basketball game tonight with her, but she's going with Leah and Heather instead."

"…That's screwed up! She really just ditched you?"

"It's not that big of a deal."

"Bull! She's always blowing you off to go with her other friends. It's messed up that she does that to you. It's like she's not even your friend when Leah and Heather come around. If she doesn't want to hang out with you, she shouldn't even make plans with you and act like she wants to. You're not her freakin' charity case." He turns himself around in his seat so he can see where Steph, Leah, Heather and all their other cheerleader friends whose names I don't know sit. "If you don't say anything to them, I will." He turns back to me. "Stephanie probably just hangs out with you because she feels sorry for you, then goes back and runs her mouth about you to Heather and Leah."

"If you don't calm down about it…" I stretch my leg out underneath the table and kick him. "I said it's not that big of a deal. I already know that I don't take priority when it comes to Steph. I know she'd rather hang out with the cheerleaders and I don't care. You're acting like it bothers me and it really, really doesn't. I'll never fit in with those girls and I don't want to. Steph actually isn't half bad when she's just with me." I tuck my hair behind my ears and sigh.

"I don't understand why you just let them walk all over you. You're not a doormat and they shouldn't treat you like one. Maybe you're just too naïve to see it, but they really do treat you like you're nothing. Why is it that every time Steph wants to invite you out with them, Leah has the final word? Like you're not cool enough for them or something. I don't know why it doesn't piss you off, but it should…"

"Because it's not worth me getting pissed off. Unlike you, I can control what bothers me and what doesn't. If I let it bother me the way it bothers you, I would have put Leah's head through a locker a long time ago, and that's not what I want. You of all people should know how it is when I get a little angry, Shane. I don't let them bother me. They don't have anything that I want… you know?"

"Oh, I _do _know what it's like when you get pissed off. My iPod didn't survive one of your pissed off moods. You don't have to tell me what it's like when you get pissed." He chuckles at that memory and I mouth "shut up" to him. "But I totally understand what you mean by not letting it bother you. It bothers me, though. To see them treat you like that, I mean. They'd be lucky to have you in their clique and they're missing out… I don't understand why you're not in that clique in the first place."

"Didn't you hear? There are rules to be in that clique."

"Rules?"

"Yeah." I nod at him. "Like rule number one: No nerds. If your GPA is higher than a 3.2, you're not allowed in." I laugh and Shane does too. "Oh, and you have to be super skinny. So skinny that you have to be at the top of the pyramid. You can't be a cow. And you CAN'T eat more than one thing at lunch, so a banana it would be. No greasy chicken nuggets."

"And you can't be prettier than any of them." He chimes in.

"Definitely not!"

"So that leaves you hopeless. Damn that 3.9 GPA you have! And curse the fact that you eat enough cookies for everyone in this school!" Shane laughs hysterically and I can't help but hold my sides while I laugh too. "And as if your study and eating habits weren't enough… you're prettier than every last one of them over there. Geez. You never had a chance, Ponytail."

"Thanks, but I can't compete with them."

"Why can't you?"

"I'm not ugly…. but I'm no Leah Murphy." I shake my head rapidly. "…Maybe if I dyed my hair blonde… and cut it shoulder length. You think I'd have a chance then?"

"Why would you want to? You'd be the only brunette one. You'd be the only one with green eyes… you'd be the only one with a guy's name. Why would you want to conform?"

"…Not the only brunette. There's a brunette sitting next to Heather. Who cares about my eyes? And they're hazel, not green. And really, Shane? My name?"

"I'm just thinking of all the reasons you shouldn't change to fit in with them. Just think. If you were in that clique, you wouldn't even talk to me."

"You're a football player, so that'd be grounds enough for me to date you. They only date athletes."

"Just promise me that you'll—" Shane stops talking abruptly, his attention caught by something else. His gaze is completely shifted, not even noticing I'm there any longer. I trace his eyes to see who—or what, for that matter, he's looking at. _Oh, it's his hopeless senior crush. Let's watch while he drools over someone that doesn't know he's alive. _I'm not sure of her name, because I never really pay attention to Shane when he gushes over her, but I guess she's not that ugly. She's kind of pretty, actually. She's quite skinny, not that busty and sort of tall. Her thick, curly hair rests in the middle of her back and her brown eyes glow as she approaches the table full of other seniors. I keep studying her face, trying to figure out if she's Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

"Close your mouth, Shaney." I mutter, scanning the rest of the seniors sitting at the table that Shane's crush sits at. There's a really tiny girl with messy dark blonde hair tied back into a careless ponytail. Her eyes are a pretty shade of blue and her eyebrows are perfectly waxed. She looks kind of mean from afar, but I'm sure she's pretty. Next to the tiny one, there's a redheaded girl with a bright smile. She seems really happy to be in school. Sitting across from the dirty blonde is a light-skinned boy with a shaved head and bright green eyes, and next to him is another guy with shaggy light brown hair. I can't see his face, but he seems bulky from behind. "…W…What are their names?" I wonder aloud to Shane, after I stop staring at them.

"I'm not really sure…" He admits.

"You don't know their names?! But you're crushing on the Asian one?!" I look at him with the most confused look I can give and just shake my head.

"There are over 7,000 kids in the high school alone, Jo. How am I supposed to keep up with everyone's names? The senior class has like 350 people in it."

"I'm just saying… how are you gonna have a crush on someone, and you don't even know their name?"

"I do know their names! I'm friends with all of them on Facebook. I just don't know who's who…" He subtly points over towards the group. "The redhead… I'm pretty sure her name's April. I think she's the ski-club president. The one next to her… is like Marilyn. I'm not sure what my babe's name is, but I hear them call her "Chris" a lot."

"You're pathetic, Shane. I'd be better off just going over there and introducing myself to them and asking them their names myself."

"Or you could ask your puppet master. I'm sure she'd know."

"My puppe—HEY! I am NOT Steph's puppet!"

"Yeah you are. It's okay, though. She's our connection to the senior world. In a world full of freshmen, you have to have connections to seniors. Stephanie Edwards is our connection."

"…Get a life. We are FRESHMEN. We're at the bottom of the food chain. We are the krill of high school. We're krill, the sophomores are the swordfish, the juniors are the sharks and the seniors are the whales. We suck, Shane."

"…Whales don't eat sharks, Jojo."

"WHATEVER. You get what I'm trying to say. Steph or no Steph, those seniors will never know who we are."

"Someday, we'll be the seniors that don't know who the freshmen are. You gotta dream big, Jojo. Dream big."

"Oh, I'm dreaming big alright." I roll my eyes at him again and throw my lunch tray away just as the bell to dismiss us to sixth period rings.


	2. I'm Not Interested

**A/N:** _So I realized today that with this being my very first Grey's Anatomy fanfiction story, the Grey's fans don't know much about me and my writing style. So to clear a few things up, here we go:_

_1. I will almost always write in first person points of view. I'm not good with third person points of view, sorry._

_2. I update my stories about once, every other day. Sometimes I'll update every day, sometimes I'll even update twice a day. It all depends._

_3. It takes me about a full day or 3-5 hours to write a single chapter, that includes proofreading and editing._

_4. I don't like to reveal ANYTHING about the plot or the characters until I'm ready. It just keeps the readers interested. But since you guys didn't know that, I'll tell you that yes, this IS a Jolex story. There will also be some Crowen, Japril, Merder and CALZONA. The primary focus will obviously be on Jo/Alex, though._

_5. There will NEVER be a chapter that is any less than 3,000 words._

_6. I appreciate each and every review. Thank you so much for reading and commenting. It really means a lot to me._

_-flawlesspeasant_

* * *

"If your mom wanted you guys to have lasagna for dinner, why didn't she just make it before she went to work?" With a large spoon, I spread sauce over the first layer of lasagna noodles and smooth it over. It's not like I mind cooking for Shane and his little brothers. I actually cook for them quite often. Shane's a horrible cook and if it wasn't for me most of the time, he and his brothers just wouldn't eat. His mother always leaves something out to make whenever she's working, but Shane just usually burns it to the point that it's not edible. "Lasagna doesn't seem like something that she would just spring on you. It's usually quick things that you can pop in the oven."

"Matt and Nick have been bugging her for a week straight to make dad's lasagna. She's been working a lot of 3 to 11 shifts lately, so she's usually gone by the time we get home from school. She got tired of them bothering her about it, so she just told me to make it today. She left me the recipe and everything but…" Shane sits down at one of the barstools at the island in the kitchen and tastes the sauce with his finger. "You know how terrible of a cook I am. I would probably never be able to pull off an entire pan of lasagna; recipe or not."

"So you thought you could just summons me to cook for you." I look up at him with a smirk and continue layering noodles, sauce, and cheese, repeat. "What would you do without me?"

"Starve."

I bust out in laughter at that comment and cover my mouth so I don't get any spit all over the food. "Well let's hope that I never have to move away for any reason because Mattie and Nicky would definitely starve." I pile cheese on the last layer of lasagna and shove the pan in the oven so it can bake. "Your brothers are good kids, Shane. Take care of them." On a serious note, I sit down across from him and state, matter-of-factly. I like spending so much time with Shane and his brothers because I really wish I had siblings. Hell, I wish I had a mother, for that matter. I would've loved to have a younger sister or something. When I was younger and playing with my Barbies, I used to live vicariously through them. I used to make sure my kids had lots of siblings to play with and a mother who stayed at home with them while the father went off to work. It was wishful thinking.

"I'm trying." He looks dead in my eyes like he always does when he's trying to get me to fully understand him. "I'm just not sure how to juggle everything." I wrinkle my brow at him, silently asking what he means by that. "My mom works a bunch of doubles, like tonight. She worked a 7-3, 3-11 today. She leaves for work before we get up for school and she gets back from work when we're asleep on school nights. She's always so exhausted, but if she didn't work like she does, we'd be homeless. She works so much but she still never has enough to pay all the bills. I want to get a job to help her out, but then who is gonna watch the boys if we're both working?"

"Where are you thinking about getting a job at?" I put my chin in the palms of my hands and listen to him intently. I've known Shane for forever and we tell each other everything, so I already know about the hard times he, his mom and his brothers are going through right now. But if a stranger from the outside walked into Shane's house, they wouldn't know that they're literally struggling right now. He has a really nice, spacious house and it's ALWAYS clean and neat. His mom decorated it pretty nicely, too.

"Down at Copley's Market. They're looking for part-time cashiers, and they start out at eight bucks an hour. I could really help my mom out with that money, Jo. But the boys need me to be here for them. I make sure they do their homework; I make sure they eat; I make sure they take baths at night and get their clothes out for school the next morning. I'm needed here, but I really want to help my mom with all the bills, y'know?" He walks over to his refrigerator and grabs two cans of Coca-Cola and two straws from the drawer beside the fridge. "I'm just stuck on what I should do."

"Well if you're trying to work down at Copley's, I heard that they don't make their minors work anything more than a five hour shift. Steph's sister's first job was down at Copley's and she said that she used to work 3-8 during the week and 1-5 on the weekends." I crack open my soda and stick the straw in it. I pause before making my point to take a sip of my soda, and Shane takes my pause as an opportunity to speak.

"I don't care how many hours I'd get, Jo. Anything would help at this point. My paychecks could go towards the gas bill or the water bill or something like that. The hours may be shitty, but I'd take anything."

I swallow my mouthful of fizzy soda goodness and lick my lips. "You didn't let me finish, Shane." I hold my hand up so he'll shut up. "I was gonna say that five hour shifts aren't bad, and they're good for you. Five hours isn't a long time at all. …I could watch the boys until you get home from work on those days… if you want." I tap my nonexistent fingernails against the island countertop and run this through my mind some more. "I'm sure my gram wouldn't mind."

"In case you missed the point of this conversation, I'm trying to help my mom _save _money; not waste money on a job I can do myself. Sometimes I wonder what goes through your head while I talk. It's like you're never listening…"

"Did I ask for you guys to pay me? No I did not." When I get a little bit upset, my face says it all. It's one of the things I hate about myself. Can you imagine your every emotion being plastered all over your face? Instinctively, my nose turns up, my upper lip turns up with it and my eyes narrow at him. "I can't believe you think I'd ask you for money to watch the boys. I'd do it for free, Shane. I do it for free now… what makes when you have a job any different?"

"…You're nuts." He shakes his head slowly like I just told him the Krabby Patty secret formula. "What you here and what you'd be doing then are two totally different things. You'd have to go get them off the bus, make sure they do their homework, you'd have to COOK every day for them, and not to mention, you'll have to entertain them for FIVE hours. Do you understand that?"

I throw my hands up. "Why are you acting like I'm incompetent?! I've been over here enough times to know your exact routine. It's really the same thing day after day. You get them off the bus, bring them home, let them watch TV, attempt to make dinner, make sure they eat, make them do homework, make sure they take a bath, they watch TV some more and they go to bed. I can do that, Shane." I cross my arms over my chest and take a deep breath. "The only difference is that what I make them for dinner will always be edible."

Shane shakes his head at me some more. "I don't know about that… I'd really have to ask my mom about it. It's just… a lot to ask of a sixteen year old."

"After everything your mom has done for me, this really is just a drop in the bucket." I hop down off the barstool to go check and make sure the lasagna isn't burning.

"My mom hasn't done enough for you to watch her rambunctious 6 and 7 year olds."

"Bull!" I stick a fork in the middle of the lasagna to see how it's cooking. It could stand to be in here for another 20 minutes or so. "All the things my grandma couldn't do for me, your mom did. She gave me 'the talk' when I was eleven, taught me how to put on my first bra, helped me do my hair for the first day of middle school, came to all those little awards assemblies in middle school for me, because she knew that you weren't gonna get any awards. Remember when I got inducted into the honors program and she took me out to dinner to celebrate? She even showed me how to use a… tampon." I merely whisper the last word because I know how Shane feels about feminine products.

Surprisingly, he doesn't cringe at that. "I totally remember that. Your grandma was at work or something and you ran over here crying your eyes out." He laughs so hard I can see tears welling up in his eyes. "You… you thought…" He can barely finish his sentence without laughing. "You thought you were dying! You busted through the back door and told my mom that you… that you were hemorrhaging. You were so freaked out!"

"Oh, shut up! I was only eleven! I didn't even know what that was!" I cringe at that memory. I was literally freaking out. I woke up from a nap I took on the couch and when I woke up, my grandma was already gone for work. I had to pee really bad when I woke up, so I went to the bathroom and I saw it in my underwear and I started crying so hard. I ran over to Shane's and told Miss Kelly I thought I was dying and she gave me a hug and took me to the bathroom. She gave me a spare pad she had in her bathroom, showed me how to put it on, and that was that. I guess it is pretty funny when I look back on it.

"That was so funny… definitely a Kodak moment. Your face… your face was so red and you cried so hard. That's definitely going down in my top 5 most favorite days."

"You're evil." I flip him my middle finger and shake that brutal memory off. That was mortifying. "But yeah… your mom has done a lot for me. You should really talk to her about letting me watch the boys while the both of you work. That wouldn't be that big of a deal. But make sure you tell her that I can't work next Friday. I've got plans." I wink at him. Of course I already know that I definitely won't have to "work" next Friday, because Shane won't get hired at Copley's that quickly, but it's just fun to joke around with him.

"Ew, what plans do you have?"

"It's nothing, just a little something I've had planned for a while now." I brush it off. I wasn't really expecting for him to take me seriously with that. I was just trying to make a joke, not open up a conversation about what I'm doing next Friday. But I know how Shane works and I know that he's not going to let this go now.

"You better not be going out with Stephanie and those girls. If I find out you were hanging out with them, I'll disown you as my adopted sister."

"I'm not hanging out with them."

"Then what are you doing? If you're not hanging out with me or Stephanie, who are you hanging out with? You don't have any other friends…"

"Well gee, thanks." I roll my eyes at him. "It's nothing, really. It's just… I'm going out to dinner with someone, that's all." I mindlessly swish my straw around inside the can of Coke and try to find pictures in the marble pattern of the countertop to distract myself. I REALLY don't want to talk about this. I really hope he just leaves it all alone, but knowing Shane, he won't.

"You're going on a date?! Jojo, why didn't you tell me?!"

"It's not a date." I stop playing with the straw and just look at him. I might as well just tell him so I can get it over with. I already know he's gonna keep bothering me about it until I tell him. I sigh and nervously play with a strand of my hair. "So two weeks ago, my gram got a phone call from this collect phone number, from Olympia. She answered it and stuff… and I guess it was my mom. So yeah, that's who I'm going out to dinner with. It's not a date; it's just my mom, me and my gram."

"…Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because I still don't even know if I want to go or not. My grandma told me that it's completely up to me, whether I go or not. She sat me down, gave me all the facts and told me it's my choice. I agreed at first, but I'm having second thoughts after thinking about it for a while."

"I thought you always wanted to meet your mom… why are you having second thoughts? You always told me that you wondered what she was like…"

"My grandma basically told me everything. I mean, aside from what I already knew." I really don't want to talk about this anymore. So why can't I keep my mouth shut? "Basically, she told me that I… wasn't wanted, but I already knew that. I guess…" I clear my throat. "I guess my mom had me at home, by herself. She never took me to a hospital or anything; she tried to just forget about me. I guess she got tired of me, because she put me in a shoebox with a blanket, put the lid over it and left me outside of a fire station. They caught her on camera, arrested her, called my grandparents and they took me in. Apparently she's been in and out of rehab for the last sixteen years and she never completed a single program before she checked herself out." I swallow this lump in my throat and try hard, not to cry. "I just feel like… I feel like if she didn't love me then, what's gonna make this time different? Especially if she's never even completed a rehab program. She didn't do anything for me, Shane. She didn't even name me…"

"Damn, that's tough. I knew your mom was a piece of shit, but I didn't think she was that big of a piece of shit." He puts his arm around my shoulder like he always does when I'm feeling sad and I put my head on his chest. "If you want my advice, I say fuck her. I don't think she deserves to know you. She left you at a fire station, probably to go get high. She doesn't deserve to know you. But it's your choice. I wouldn't, but it's your choice."

"…Thank you, Shaney." I reach up with my hand and tap him on the cheek to let him know that I truly appreciate him being there for me. "Now let me get the food out of the oven. I'm hungry…"

* * *

"Are you sure your mom doesn't care if I stay the night?" I'm just asking as a precaution, but I already know that Miss Kelly won't care if I stay the night. I'm over Shane's house more than I'm at my own house and she never minds if I'm there. I can come inside the house without knocking or ringing the doorbell, that's how close I am with Shane's family. I lie against his Seattle Seahawks body pillow and rest his laptop on my knees. I type in his password and unlock it so I can get on the internet. I glance over the top of the laptop at him. "Butthead, did you hear me?"

"I didn't think you were serious." He turns his back to me while he takes off his towel. "Does my mom ever care that you're here?" He quickly rubs his back dry with his towel and tosses it to the side. He already put his boxers on as soon as he got out the shower, I assume. It's honestly not at all awkward that Shane's getting dressed in front of me. He knows I'm not looking at him just like I know he'd never look at me. We don't walk around each other bare butt naked or anything like that; it's just not abnormal for us to change in front of each other. The most I've seen of Shane is a buttcheek or two, and he's only seen my stomach and maybe my butt, I'm not sure.

"Well duh, she never cares. But I usually stay over when she's home. You sure she won't be mad that I'm here while she's not?" I click on his Facebook icon and log into mine.

"Oh, please." He yanks a white t-shirt on over his head and sits down next to me on his bed. "I'm pretty sure my mom knows that me and you would never do anything. She knows that I think you're disgusting."

"Screw you!"

"It's the truth though!" He reads through my Facebook notifications over my shoulder. "You know how many times I've been asked if I was dating you? I would never… you're gross. You shed your hair, you eat like a pig, you burp like Shrek and my big toe has more athletic ability than you. You're not exactly my type."

"…Well thanks. I love ya too." I keep scrolling through my newsfeed for something interesting. "Why am I not your type? Is it because I'm not Asian with black hair?"

"Stop making fun of me. She's beautiful…" After I log out of my Facebook, he takes the laptop from me and logs into his. "You wanna find out her name? We'll find it out right now, you and me." He clicks on his friends list and starts scrolling. "Help me look for her profile picture." I sigh and roll my eyes. This could literally take all freaking night. Shane has about 700 Facebook friends, and we're gonna scroll through all of them. He begins with the As. "Do you see her yet?"

"We're only in the As, you goofball. If you would learn somebody's name before you decide to crush on them, we wouldn't have this prob—Oooh! Eye candy! Click on him!" I point to the profile I want him to click on and he does. If he really looks like what he looks like in his profile picture, he's severely attractive. He has light skin, green eyes and a shaved head. "J…Jackson Avery? It says he goes to Garfield… he goes to our school?! Why have I never seen him?" I squint just a little to get a better look. "Wait, he was sitting with your lady candy at lunch today… you know him?"

"He's on the football team. He's kind of a jerk, but he's nice to me most of the time. Remember the redhead we saw at lunch today? He's her boyfriend, I think."

"He has a girlfriend?"

"….Did you not read his about? It says 'in a relationship' with…" He clicks the "more" option so he can see who he's in a relationship with. "In a relationship with April Kepner, I told you so. She's the red head."

"Click on her profile." He clicks on her page and her profile picture is so pretty that I'm not even sad anymore. "Aw, she's pretty… aside from the braces, she's really pretty…" I poke my lip out. "They're cute, I guess. Go through her pictures for me." He starts clicking through her pictures. "She's really pretty."

"There's that other one we saw at lunch today; the blonde one." He points to the picture. "I wonder if they all hang out together. If they do, this will probably lead me to my girl."

"Your girl?"

"Shut up, Jo." He clicks on the blonde one's profile. "Meredith… I was close at lunch today. I said Marilyn… that was close enough." He starts quickly filing through her pictures. "There she is! …Cristina… She's beautiful."

"Keep it in your pants, Shaney." I take the laptop off him and click on this Cristina's profile. "Says she's in a relationship with someone named Owen. Too bad for that." I scroll down through some of her posts to see just what kind of person my Shaney has a crush on. "…I think she might be bisexual, dude!"

"Shut up, she's not!"

"Uh, yeah she is! Look… she wrote 'You have a really nice butt lol' and she tagged some girl named Alex in it! She's bi!"

"Move, lemme see…" He yanks the laptop from my hands and clicks on the Alex person's profile. "IT'S A DUDE, IDIOT!"

"No way!" I snatch the laptop back off him and look. "…Damn. I was really hoping she was bisexual for a minute. It would have been so funny to see your dreams crash and burn if she had a boyfriend AND she was into girls!" I skim briefly through Alex's profile. "He goes to Garfield too… says he likes wrestling, baseball and basketball. I've seriously never seen him around…"

"Ooooh… Jo's got a crush…"

"I do not! I just never knew we had all these people in our school. Plus, he's a senior. Unlike you, I know not to get my little freshman mind involved with a senior boy I could never have."

"…You won't get involved with a senior boy because you don't like boys."

"I'M NOT GAY. I DO like boys… just no one from around here, really."

"Then admit you have a crush on Alex."

"No, because I don't. I don't even know the guy. I've seen pictures. He's cute and all, but I can't have a crush on someone I don't know. For all I know, he could be a crack head or something…"

"Do you _want_ to get to know him?"

"Not really, no. I'm not interested…"

"You hesitated!"

"No I didn't!"

"Yes you did!" Shane takes the laptop away from me and springs up off his bed with it. "I'm sending him a friend request from your Facebook!" He darts into the bathroom with the laptop and I'm not far behind him.

"SHANE! SHANE, COME ON! IT'S NOT FUNNY!" I reach the bathroom door seconds after he does, just as he locks it on me. "SHANE! DON'T YOU DARE! STOP IT!" I bang on the door with a flat hand. "SHANE! PLEASE, DON'T DO IT! I DON'T EVEN LIKE HIM!" Oh my goodness, if he sends Alex a friend request… I don't even know him! _Remind me to change my password_. "SHANE, IF YOU DO IT, I'M GOING HOME! I SWEAR TO GOODNESS I'M GOING HOME AND NEVER COMING BACK OVER HERE! STOP PLAYING AROUND, IT'S NOT FUNNY!"

"He accepted it! I'm gonna send him a message… I'm just gonna say 'hey, I was looking through your profile and I see that we go to the same school. I'm Jo.' Is that okay with you?" He's chuckling through his words and it's REALLY not funny. I'm starting to get mad, and that's not good. I feel my breath shortening and my temperature literally rising. I'm getting mad…

"SHANE I SWEAR TO GOD! IF YOU SEND HIM A MESSAGE, I'M COMING THROUGH THIS DOOR AND BEATING YOUR ASS SO BAD YOUR STITCHES ARE GONNA NEED STITCHES!" I grip the door handle and twist it with all of my might. I can hear him snickering and laughing through the door. This is NOT going to end well. "…Shane, I'm getting mad." I'm feeling calm, which is REALLY not a good thing. I always get this rush of calmness before I explode. It's gonna happen. My hands bawl themselves up into fists and my teeth bite down on my lip. "Open the door, Shane. Please, open the door… I'm getting mad."

"How mad?" He sounds like he's letting up. As long as Shane has known me, I've only exploded in front of him about twice. The first time I did it, some guy at the park kept calling me "Jo Blow". I don't know why, but it made me so mad to the point where I choked him and Shane had to pull me off him. The second time, I was trying to put music on Shane's iPod and it kept telling me that I was putting in the wrong passcode. I threw his iPod at the wall and broke it.

"Really mad, Shane. Really… really mad."

"Okay, I'm done." He opens up the bathroom door and comes out rather quickly. "My bad. I was just joking around, y'know…." He looks at me like he's scared and he damn well should be. "Take a walk… count to ten… calm down." He puts his hands up as a sign of truce. "My white flag is waving…I'm saying uncle."

I close my eyes tightly and breathe in. "…What. Did. You. Say?"

"Say about what?"

"In the message you sent, jackass."

"I didn't send a message. I requested him and he accepted, but I didn't send him a message." He sidesteps me to get out of the bathroom. "…Are you cool?"

"….I'm fine. Just don't take me there again."

"You need to go back to those anger classes."

"They don't work." My temperature is regulating itself again and my hands finally uncurl themselves out of the fists. "If I tell you that I'm getting mad, that should be a sign for you to stop being such an asshole."

"So you're cussing at me now?" He seems taken aback by my swearing, only because I don't usually swear this much. I'll let an occasional f-word, s-word or c-word slip out here and there, but I don't usually swear. I just don't have a potty-mouth like he does. "Go ahead, get all your cussing out. Get it all out."

"You're a fucking asshole for that, Shane. I clearly told you that I wasn't interested in him. Why do you insist on acting like a jackass? If you want to act shitty, don't do it with me. You should already know that I'll beat your ass anyway. How many times have I beat your ass for picking on me as kids? Now I have to go and unfriend him and hope he doesn't notice me in school, all because of you. I should message Cristina Yang from your account and tell her that you worship the ground she walks on. I should do all that, but I won't. Wanna know why I won't? Because I'm a good ass friend. You're lucky I love you, otherwise I'd really be done with you. That really pissed me off."

"I'm sorry, Jojo. I just wanted to make you smile. You don't smile a lot anymore. Are you still mad at me?" He extends his arms for a hug.

"Yes." I give him a hug anyway. "I still hate you… Shaney."

"That's okay, Josephine."

"LOW BLOW. LOW BLOW. I told you to NEVER use my full name against me."

"Just like I told you to never call me 'Shaney'. I've been letting you slide." He sticks his tongue out at me. "So let's go look at this Alex dude's profile. I have to make sure he's suitable for you…"

"…Go to hell, Shane."


	3. You Don't See It

"If your grandmother doesn't mind, I want you to come back over later. I was thinking about taking the boys to my parents' house to go swimming, since it's going to be a nice day. You can come with us; my treat." Shane's mom whisks my breakfast plate away and lays it carefully in the kitchen sink. I don't know very much about mothers, but I do know that if I were to have a mother, I hope she'd be like Miss Kelly. She just got home from work at 7:00 this morning and she didn't even go to sleep. She came home; cleaned up the house a little bit and made us all breakfast, since she didn't cook for her kids last night. She has to be quite tired. "It's not very often we get nice days in Seattle."

"I'll ask her when I go home." I finish off the last little bit of orange juice in my glass and take it to the sink myself. "I'm sure she won't mind. I don't think she has anything planned for me to do today anyway, so she'll probably be happy to get rid of me for a little while." I glance up above the stove at the microwave, to check the time. It's almost 10:00. "I'd better head home before she gets worried about me." I walk over to the back door where I took my shoes off at and slide them back on. "What time should I come back later?"

"Come back around 4:30, sweetie."

"Okay. Tell Shane I said I'll see him later." I head towards the front door, still stomping my shoes properly on my feet. Shane had to go outside and mow the lawn after breakfast, before it gets too humid outside. He usually cuts my grandma's grass when he cuts his own but our grass doesn't really need cut yet. "I'll see you later, Miss Kelly." I walk past Nick and Matt sitting on the couch watching something on TV and open up the front door. From the kitchen, I hear her yell a subtle "Bye!" at me. I shut their door behind myself and start walking up the street to my house. The walk to my house is only a lousy two minutes, but I often find myself pretty deep in thought while I'm walking home.

_At least I have plans for the weekend that don't include Stephanie. I do kinda wish I had hung out with Steph, though. Shane's great and all, but I need a girlfriend that I can hang out with outside of school and basketball games. I wonder what Leah, Heather and Steph's sleepovers are like. I wonder if they watch movies and eat popcorn and talk about cute boys. They probably watch romantic comedies, eat things like rice cakes and talk about all the junior and senior boys. They probably know who's crushing on whom and where they hooked up last night. Why am I so different from them? I wonder if maybe they think that I _am _gay, and they don't invite me anywhere because of it. I'm just like them, only a little less boy-crazy. Whatever._

"Graaaaaaammy… I'm home!" I shout as I walk into the house. I shut and lock the door behind me and kick my shoes into the shoe-caddy behind the door. I know she's not still asleep. She wakes up at the butt-crack of dawn every single day. I trudge into the kitchen and look around. The countertops are wiped clean and on the stove is something wrapped in tin foil. Next to it is a clean white napkin. I walk over to it and pick it up. "Joey, if you're hungry, heat this up in the microwave." I read the writing on the napkin aloud. I unwrap the tin foil and see what's in it. Three pieces of breakfast sausage and a pile of scrambled eggs. Ehh, not hungry. I rewrap it and leave it alone. "Graaaam? You here?"

"Jo?! I'm out here, hon!" Finally, she responds. _I could've guessed that she'd be outside in the yard. _I yank the sliding glass door to the side and step out on the deck. She's busy digging around near her tomatoes. "It's about time you came home. I thought I was gonna have to go down to the Ross's and drag you outta there." She stands right up and dusts her hands off on her raggedy blue jean capris. For a 67 year old, my grandma is pretty young. She's healthy for the most part, aside from a little bit of arthritis. "Did you have fun last night?" She comes straight over to me and puts her soft, delicate hand inside of mine, tracing a slight bruise on my palm.

"Yeah. I see you made me breakfast, but I'm not hungry. Miss Kelly cooked for us before I came home." My grandma looks nothing at all like me. She's very pale with powder blonde, poofy curly hair and dark brown eyes. She says I look very much like my mom, but I wouldn't know considering the fact that I've never even seen so much as a picture of her. My gram sometimes tells me stories about her. According to my grandma, my mother was a pretty rebellious teenager and she got into a lot of trouble. My grandpa eventually talked my gram into sending her to some type of alternative school, but that only made her more rebellious. She met my dad at a bowling alley one night. He was 34 and she was 17 but they ran away to California together so my grandparents wouldn't put him in jail. My gram said she never heard from my mom after she and my dad ran away together until the Los Angeles police department called her and told her that her daughter had been arrested for prostitution and possession of drugs and left her baby at the fire station.

Until I was three, my gram and pappy lived in Los Angeles with me because the adoption paperwork wasn't legal yet and I couldn't go past state lines until it was legal. I think we probably would have stayed in California if pappy hadn't had his stroke. I think grammy wanted to come back home to Seattle after pappy died in California to get away from the memories they had in Los Angeles. My grandparents did everything for me. They took me in as a baby, legally adopted me and even named me. Two old people naming me… I guess that's why I got a name as old fashioned as "Josephine."

"Miss Kelly invited me to come swimming with them later… do you care if I go?" I plop down on one of the lawn chairs and pull my legs into my chest.

"Oh… I was thinking we could go to the mall today and pick you up a cute new outfit to see your mother in next weekend. And your hair needs trimmed up. But I guess we can just go tomorrow…" She grabs a handful of my hair and examines it. "I might trim it myself. I don't want them to take too much off."

"About that…" I look up at her, pulling my hair from her hand. "…I decided that I don't want to. Meet my mother, I mean."

"…Okay."

"…Are you mad at me?" I wince a little. I think she was kind of looking forward to seeing her only daughter meet her only daughter. If she really wants me to meet my mom, I will. But she said I didn't have to, and I really don't want to. _What if I hate her? Even worse, what if I really like her? What if I get really close to her and she just goes back to abandoning me? I don't want to open myself up to that kind of rejection. It's bad enough she didn't want me even when I was a helpless little baby. She's not gonna want me now that I'm a moody, brooding teenager. _"I'll meet her if you want me to…"

"Josephine." She looks at me like I just slapped her in her face. "I told you that this decision was completely up to you. I would never force you to do that. It doesn't matter what I want." She sits down at the other end of the lawn chair and puts her hand on against my sock-covered foot. "I understand why you don't want to. You probably feel like you're better off not knowing her, and you're probably right. It's completely up to you, darling. I'm with you no matter what. If you go meet her, I'm coming with you. If you don't, you still have a place to sleep at night."

"Are you sure?"

"Why wouldn't I be sure?" She closes in on me and puts her forehead against mine like she used to do when I was younger. "It's better for me if you don't meet her, because then I won't have to share ya." That comment makes me smile. My grammy has always had a special way of making me feel like I'm the most special person on this planet. She makes it seem like it's a privilege to be my guardian. "There's that smile I love." She pats me on my butt and stands up. "Alright, kiddie. Before you go with Kelly and the boys later, you need to fold your clean laundry. I put your basket on your bed."

"I will."

* * *

"Because I'm doing this for the thrill of it, killin' it. Never not chasing a million things I want. And I am only as young as the minute is, full of it. Getting pumped up on the little bright things I bought. But I know they'll never own me." I sing quite loud to the song playing on my iHome. I have about an hour to waste before I have to go back down Shanes, so I'm wasting it by doing my favorite things: eating peanut M&Ms, listening to music and surfing the internet. "Baby be the class clown. I'll be the beauty queen in tears. It's a new art form, showing people how little we care. We're so happy even when we're smiling out of fear. Let's go down to the tennis court and talk it up like yeah, yeah." I shovel another two or three M&Ms in my mouth and chew.

I swallow my mouthful of chewed up candy and log into my Facebook account. I never have many notifications on my Facebook. I'm pretty much a lonely soul that nobody even thinks twice about. Surprisingly, I have three new notifications and a new message, probably from Steph. I click on the notifications globe and check them first, reading them in my mind. _Alex Karev accepted your friend request. Write on his timeline! Yeah, right. Four people liked your photo. _I click on that one so I can see which picture they liked. It's the one I uploaded yesterday and it's not even that cute. I took it after I straightened my hair and I just liked it because my eyes looked really green in it. _Well who liked it? _I click on the "likers" number. _Shane Ross, Stephanie Edwards, Heather Brooks, Leah Murphy and Alex Karev like this._ _Since when does this many people like one of my selfies? _I scroll down to the bottom to see if anybody commented on it. _Shane: Ewwwww so ugly Steph: Your eyes are my life. Leah: pretty picture! Okay, since when does Leah call me pretty? What is going on with the world? I don't get called pretty by popular girls and senior boys don't like my pictures. _I'm just gonna go with it.

Lastly, I check my new message. I already know it's from Steph and she's probably just asking me what the algebra homework was. I think it's strange how Stephanie and I only communicate through Facebook. If she were to ask me, I'd give her my number so she can text me. I don't think she really wants to do that though. I click on the message icon and go to my inbox. "Oh my god." Well, the message isn't from Stephanie. It's not from Shane. It's not even from Heather or Leah. It's from ALEX. "What is he doing, messaging me?" I don't recognize that I'm smiling through the fact that I'm really confused. "What the hell?" I don't even realize that I'm speaking aloud. I'm too nervous to click on the full message, but from the preview, all I can see is that he said "Yeah I'm…"

This is so crazy. What do I do?! _Click on it, Jo. Just click on it…. click on it! _What if he didn't mean to message me? What if it was an accident? I just don't want to be embarrassed… seriously, what if it's all a mistake? What if he told me that I'm annoying or something? What if he's wondering why I requested him? _I'll just tell him that my annoying friend requested him. Just click on it! _I close my eyes and double click on my mouse. Oh my god I'm so nervous. My heart is pumping and my stomach is just churning. I open one eye… then the other to read it.

**Alex: **Yeah I'm a senior at Garfield. You a freshman?

…What does he mean? I scroll up just a little bit and like I suspected, there's a message from me. It says: Hey, I saw on your profile that we go to the same school. You go to Garfield High too?

"I'm gonna fucking kill Shane." I mumble to myself. I'm going to KILL him. He told me he didn't message him! I exit out of my Facebook without messaging him back and turn my computer off. I'm going to go kill him. "Grammy, I'm going down Shane's a little early! I'll see you later!" Slamming my bedroom door shut behind me, I run down the steps and straight out the front door.

Shane's dead.

* * *

"Well I couldn't tell you last night that I lied about messaging him. I was gonna tell you today. I didn't actually expect him to message you back." Shane pulls his t-shirt off over his head and walks toward the swimming pool. I take my basketball shorts off and follow him. "If I would have told you last night that I messaged him, you would have killed me. I had to wait until you were calmer." He sits down on the edge of the pool and puts his feet in. I stand behind him with my hands on my hips.

"What do you think I wanna do to you now?! I was totally blindsided, Shane." I cover my hands over my stomach, because I really don't feel too comfortable in a bikini. I'm not exactly the thinnest chick you'd ever meet. I'm far from fat but I am pretty thick compared to some of the girls in my grade. "You made me sound like one of those typical thirsty ass freshmen girls and I'm not. I don't even have a crush on him like you think I do. Now what am I supposed to do?"

"Message him back? Tell him that yeah, you're a freshman and you'll see him around school sometime." He swings his feet in the water and looks up at me. "Guys dig chicks that make the first move."

"I don't know how to deal with this! Leah and Heather both liked my picture from yesterday, Leah called me pretty, Alex liked the picture and then he messaged me! I don't know how to deal with any of this, Shane. You just made shit so much more complicated for me. Thanks a lot."

"You sure have been cussing at me a whole lot."

"Because you deserve it! You've been nothing but a complete asshole to me since yesterday. I told you that I don't have a crush on him and you requested him and messaged him anyway! Then you just sit here and brush it off like it's nothing. It's like you like seeing me embarrassed and humiliated. What kind of best friend are you?" I purse my lips together to keep the tears in my eyes from spilling over. "Don't you dare say it's not a big deal, because it is a big deal. It's a big deal to me, Shane. I'm already dealing with Leah and them making fun of me, and you just opened me up to more criticism by messaging a senior."

"Jo, are you serious right now? Are you really about to cry?" His face turns from playful to serious. "If it really is that big of a deal to you, then I'm sorry. I'll message Alex myself and tell him that it was all me. I'll tell him that I requested him and messaged him off your account. I just can't believe you're about to cry over this."

"What's there not to believe?! You of all people should know how this is for me! I'm not… I'm not pretty, Shane. I would never get the chance to be with a senior and I'm not even popular! The only thing I've ever been good at was getting good grades. I don't flirt and boys don't like me. Most people in our grade think I'm a lesbian because all I do is hang out with YOU, because you've been my only friend for years! And you're really gonna say that you can't believe I'm about to cry? Of course I'm gonna cry! I humiliate myself enough without your help!"

He shakes his head at me. "You really don't see it, do you? You actually don't see it…"

"See what?!"

"I didn't want to be the person to tell you this, because you won't believe it if I say it, but I'm gonna say it anyway."

"Then say it. I don't even care anymore."

"You're gorgeous, Jo. I really do mean that. Leah, Heather and even STEPHANIE can't hold a candle to you. You're so much better than those girls. They're all so typical. Cheerleaders with skinny bodies, perfect hair, perfect clothes, average grades and so into themselves. You're the total opposite of them! You gotta start looking at yourself. You've come a long way since we were kids. Boys _do _look at you; you just refuse to notice it. So many of my friends ask me if we're dating because they think you're actually hot. You just have this attitude about yourself that really freaking sucks. You say you don't think you're ugly but you DO. It's just crazy to me that you don't see that you're NOT ugly."

"You're just saying that…" I look away from him and sigh. Every time I get a little angry with Shane, he tries to calm me down by complimenting me. He's full of shit most of the time.

"See, that's why I didn't want to be the one to tell you that. I knew you wouldn't believe me. You think everybody is so against you. Have you ever thought that maybe Leah wasn't mocking you when she called you pretty? Maybe she actually meant it. But you're so negative that of course you think she's just picking on you when she says that."

"If you really mean that, then why do you always make it a point to tell me how disgusting and ugly I am?"

"Holy God, Jo! You take everything so damn seriously! I didn't know you were gonna take me seriously!"

"I don't take it seriously! I know you're just joking when you call me ugly and stuff but I—"

"Well if you know I'm joking then why would you even bring it the hell up right now?!"

"Because you're lying to me! You're just mad that I'm pissed at you so now you have to lie to me to make me un-pissed at you. You do it all the freaking time. If you weren't lying, you wouldn't go out of your way to tell me that I'm gross."

"BECAUSE I CLEARLY THINK YOU A_RE _GROSS, JO." He puts his hands on his head and just shakes it. "You're my SISTER; of course I don't think you're attractive! I still see you as the Jo who used to let me eat the outside of the Oreo after she licked the cream off the inside; the Jo that peed her pants because my dad yelled at us for writing the word POOP in the fresh poured cement driveway; the Jo that used to make me wear a pink bonnet when we acted out Sugarland videos. I don't think you're hot or… sexy or any of that. But as your adoptive brother, you have to believe me when I say that you're far prettier than you think you are."

I just inadvertently burst out in gut-busting laughter. "Oh god, I totally remember that! I chased you around my backyard with a plastic baseball bat when we were acting out 'Stuck Like Glue.'" I seriously can't stop laughing. "My… My…. My grandma came outside… and…and she… she…" Tears start streaming down my face from laughing so hard. "She sent you home because she thought I was really gonna beat you with the baseball bat!"

Shane's laughing too. "I thought you were too! You were coming AT me with the bat and you looked serious!"

"It was only plastic…"

"It still hurt! I let you get one hit in and you cracked me in the back of my knees with it and made me fall down." He pats the cement next to him, signaling for me to sit down too. I take his offer and sit down beside him with my feet in the swimming pool water. "You gotta believe me when I say these things, Jo. I'm the only person that's gonna be honest with you. I keep all of my promises to you, and I promised you that I would never lie about you or to you again. Remember that?"

"After your mom spanked me with a shoe because you lied to her? Yeah, I remember that." I roll my eyes at him playfully. "You let me take the fall for so many things, doofus." I remember the day Shane promised to be honest with me like it was yesterday. Shane and I were running through his house with water guns. We were playing "World War 2", ducking behind doors to keep from getting shot. Shane squirted a crapload of water on the hallway floor (which happened to be polished wood) and when I was running, I slid on the floor and broke two of his mom's vases. We were both questioned about it and Shane told her that I broke the vases intentionally. His mom spanked me with a shoe and then she spanked Shane too and we both had to go to Shane's room and think about what we did. That wasn't the first, nor was it the last time Shane's mom disciplined me.

My grandma's one of those old-fashioned grandmas that believe when a child acts up, it's anybody's right to discipline them. She didn't give a damn if Shane's folks would spank me, yell at me or wash my mouth out with soap. It never bothered me either. Shane's mom is like my mom, so if she thinks it's necessary to discipline me, she can.

Miss Kelly often introduces me as her "daughter." The first time she ever did it, I almost started to cry. I've always viewed her as a mother-figure, but to hear her actually acknowledge the fact that she thinks of me as another child of hers felt really… good. We were at one of Shane's family reunions when I was six and she told one of Shane's great aunts that I was "her other baby, Jo."

"Do you really think I should message him back?" I swish my feet around in the water and sigh. "You don't think he'll find me annoying?"

"If he found you annoying, he wouldn't have accepted the friend request. I definitely think you should message him back. Maybe you guys will become friends."

"Yeah, maybe…"

* * *

**A/N:** Brace yourselves for serious drama coming in the next few chapters. I won't give anything away, but just prepare yourselves for some really raw emotions. Plus, I might move the rating up to M; for sexual references and some heavier swearing going on.

Also, if you really like and follow this story and don't realize when I update, I seriously recommend following me on Twitter. I tweet the link EVERY SINGLE TIME i update this story. My username is lovaddington. :)


	4. Thoughts

**Sun, Oct 12, 2013**

**5:32 p.m.**

**Me: **Yeah, sadly I'm just a freshman.

Shane would be so mad to know that it took me literally an entire day to gather up enough courage to message Alex back. I've just been thinking about what to say. I've never really spoken to any boy outside of Shane. What if I say something to make myself sound like an idiot? I let out a deep sigh, exit out of my Facebook app, lock my cell phone back and toss it beside me on my bed. I would give anything to not have to go to school tomorrow. Now that Alex knows that I exist, what if he looks for me? What if he thinks I'm nothing but a measly little freshman? I pull my lousy self away from my bed and go over to sit in the chair in front of my vanity.

All of my things consist of such boyish things. I gaze down on the top of my vanity and file through the things with my eyes. Unscented Dove deodorant, cocoa butter scented lotion, sunscreen, my black reading glasses, my anger medication, a copy of The Hunger Games and my iHome is all that's on my dresser. Disappointed, I look up at myself in the mirror hanging on the wall behind the vanity. _Shane said I could be pretty… but I just don't see it. Shane said that people think I'm pretty though… _I reach back and pull the scrunchie that's holding my hair back out. My hair falls out in bouncy, natural waves and cuts off just above where my arm folds. It's a pretty dark shade of chestnut brown and it's extremely thick. I guess my nose could be smaller… it sticks out a little too far for my liking. _Steph always tells me that I have pretty eyes… _I guess my eyes are pretty cool. _But I just don't look like those other girls. What is it about me? It's like I'm missing something. I just don't know… but looking like this, I'll never get somebody like Alex to give me a second look._

"It's worth a shot…" I mutter to myself, getting up from my vanity and shoving on a pair of rundown, used-to-be-white flip flops. I leave my phone on my bed and shut my bedroom door behind me. My grandma is downstairs in the kitchen fixing dinner, I believe. I can smell it from the top of the steps and it smells like some kind of soup. I jog down the steps and round the corner into the kitchen. "Grammy?" I pick up a cookie off the plate in the middle of the kitchen table and take a bite. "Can I have some money? Like… twenty bucks or something."

"Look on top of the fridge in the cookie jar." She shakes some pepper into the big silver pot and tastes some of the mixture with her finger. "There should be a couple hundreds, a twenty and two tens up in there. Take the twenty and two tens." I shove the rest of the cookie in my mouth like a pig and stand on my tip toes to grab the cookie jar. "What do you need the money for anyway?"

"I'm gonna run to the store and grab some things that I forgot to pick up. I need personals." My grandma doesn't ask much of me, honestly. If I need money, all I need to do is ask for it. Occasionally she'll ask me what I need the money for but most of the time she trusts that I'll spend it wisely and I'm only asking for it if I really need it. "Do you need anything while I'm out?" I ask because I know that sometimes she prefers to wait until I need something from the store to get whatever she needs, because she doesn't like to drive much anymore because driving bothers her knees. I do a lot of the driving around here. I shove the money in my back pocket and grab the car keys.

"Just make sure you grab toothpaste and some toilet tissue while you're out. Don't be too long. Dinner will be ready in a jiffy."

"I won't be long. I'm just gonna run down to the CVS…" I dash out the front door and straight out to the Buick. The car's only about two years old. It was brand new when my gram bought it. It's sort of an "old-person" car, but I think it's rather nice. I start the car and carefully back out of the driveway. I'm not even entirely sure what I'm running to CVS for. I mean, I know what I would_ like_, but I really don't know how to even shop for it. I gotta start somewhere though.

When the light turns green, I drive through the intersection and make the turn into the CVS parking lot. I park in a spot close to the entrance and get out. I don't know why my heart is beating so fast that I can hardly breathe and my stomach is so weightless that I literally might throw up. But, I push through it and walk through the doors of the pharmacy. I know where it is. I've walked past it so many times before, and I've honestly always wanted to buy it. I pick up a red basket/carrier thing and take a deep breath. I swallow a dry lump in the back of my throat and walk directly over to the aisle.

I stand in front of all of it, completely puzzled. What kind is the best kind? _How the hell will I even put this stuff on? I don't know, just roll with it Jo. _What all will I need? I pick up a packaged tube of something and hold it to my face so I can read it. _Maybelline… "The Falsies Mascara" Up to 2xs more volume for your lashes! _It can't hurt. I throw it in the basket and keep looking. I pick up a pencil-looking thing and throw it in the basket. I'm ready to just get out of here. I grab a small container of what I think is cover-up and two smaller, square shaped containers of colorful eye shadow stuff. On my way out of the aisle, I throw a carton of Colgate toothpaste in the basket, Dove deodorant that smells like "powder fresh" and snatch a small thing of Charmin toilet paper off the shelf. I can't believe what I just did.

Now the real task is to figure out how this crap goes on my face. I think I've seen enough movies to understand what goes where. I've seen Leah and Steph brush some of this stuff on after gym class. I could never ask either one of them how to put this stuff on. It's bad enough I'm buying it. I could NEVER tell Shane what I just did. He'd think I'm silly for it. Hell, even I think I'm stupid for doing this. As if …makeup could make a difference. I can hear the comments already. _Jo? In makeup? HA! Where are her basketball shorts and t-shirts? You mean she actually cleaned her face up and stopped wearing all those Polo shirts? It's about time she stopped wearing those raggedy tennis-shoes! Imagine that. Jo Wilson trying to be a girl for once in her life. _What am I doing with this makeup? Nobody's gonna think it makes a difference anyway. Crap. I really want to cry.

"That'll be $22.47, honey." The cashier bags all of the …makeup, toilet paper and toothpaste and hands me the bag as I hand her a twenty and a ten from my back pocket. _You can't go to school looking like a clown tomorrow. Better go watch some videos on the internet on how to put this shit on. You're such an idiot. You just wasted all this money on something you don't even know how to put on. _I rock back and forth on my feet while I wait for my change and my receipt. _And let's say that you _do _figure out how to cake this crap on your face. What are you going to wear?! You can't go to school wearing makeup dressed like a seventh grade skater boy. You wore the only comfortable pair of jeans you own on Friday. _

"Thanks." I merely whisper to the cashier after I take my receipt and change in my hand and turn to leave the store.

* * *

"It feels like a perfect night to dress up like hipsters and make fun of our exes…" I toss another blackened tissue aside and tilt my head to see my face at all angles. It took me two hours, three boxes of tissues and an entire bowl of water, but I really think I got it right this time. Just like the girl on YouTube said, my eyeliner isn't too thick and the eye shadow is a color that is noticeable but not too dramatic. My eyelashes look really thick and not too clunky. The cover-up isn't too cakey. "It feels like a perfect night for breakfast at midnight, to fall in love with strangers." Now all I've got to do is wash all this gunk off my face and redo it tomorrow morning. Before I take a shower, I had better find something to wear to school tomorrow though. I have so many clothes that I don't wear. It's time to raid my closet for something really cute.

On my way over to my closet, I turn up the volume on my iHome. I'm really making a serious attempt to get in touch with my feminine side, so I went on Pandora and found a "chick-hits" station. Half of the songs that have been playing have made me want to gag on more than one occasion, but I find an occasional one that isn't that bad; like the one I'm listening to right now. I've never heard it before this but it's already come on Pandora three times and I've already learned some of the words. I really kind of like it. "We're happy, free, confused and lonely at the same time. It's miserable and magical oh yeah." I slide open the door to my closet and turn on the light inside of it.

If Shane could see me right now, he would definitely make fun of me and call me a softie. Come on! How much "typical-high-school-girl"ier does it get than this? I'm literally in MAKEUP, dancing around in my UNDERWEAR to some Taylor Swift song. I'd make fun of myself if I could see myself from the outside. "Tonight's the night we forget about the deadlines. It's time… uh uh…" I yank a pair of dark blue skinny jeans off a hanger and hold them up. These could work for tomorrow. _Holy shit, this is my part… _"I don't know about you! But I'm feelin' 22! Everything will be alright if you keep me next to you! You don't know about me! But I'll bet you want toooooo! Everything will be alright if we just keep dancing like we're… twenty twooooooooooo…. Twenty twoooooooooo…" _Oh god, Josephine. Never mention this to ANYBODY. But…I'm having fun. _

Towards the back of my closet, I find a sheer, see-through, peach-colored oversized sweater. It still has the tags on it. I've never even wore it. My gram bought it for me to wear when I had to go up on stage and get an award for the science fair last year. I ended up wearing a pair of jeans and a black t-shirt instead. To be on the safe side, I put the jeans and the shirt next to each other to see how well they match up. So I found my outfit for tomorrow and I figured out how to put makeup on. I just hope I don't make a complete fool of myself tomorrow.

So now I have to take a shower to wash all this crap off my face. I'm gonna shower, shave my legs in the shower and wash my hair. CRAP. MY HAIR. What am I gonna do with my hair tomorrow?! _You might just have to suck it up and go natural tomorrow, wavy or not._ I don't feel like spending the two hours to straighten my hair, so wavy it's gonna have to be. I don't even care. At least I'll look pretty in the face, I hope.

I really just wonder what Shane is gonna think. Is he gonna think that I'm being too soft? Maybe he'll get mad at me because I'm doing something out of the ordinary to make myself appear more attractive. _What if Shane decides not to talk to me? Who will I sit with at lunch tomorrow? _Should I even try to dress like a girl tomorrow; I mean, is it really worth it? Will dressing like an actual female really change the way people look at me? Ever since the start of middle school, everyone has seen me wearing nothing but baggy shorts, supersized t-shirts and scuffed up tennis-shoes. Will it really make the slightest difference? People will probably still see me as tomboy Jo.

Is it really going to make me fit in with the cheerleaders? I've spent years convincing myself that I don't _want _to fit in with those girls, but what if I do? What if… just slightly, I want to have them as friends, because I can't talk about period cramps, huge zits and other womanly issues with Shane? What if, by chance, I just want to actually be _girly-girl _Jo and not _tomboy _Jo for a moment?

I undress myself and throw my clothes into my dirty laundry basket so I can go take a shower. _I'd better get up a half hour earlier tomorrow morning, just in case I have trouble with the whole makeup thing. _Maybe I'll get lucky and nobody will even notice tomorrow. Nobody noticing would be a hell of a lot better than everybody making fun of me for it. _Grammy used to wear makeup, surely she knows exactly how to put it on without it taking two hours. _Like I'd be caught dead telling my grandmother that I went out and bought makeup. Let's face it, the makeup isn't my proudest moment. Nevertheless, I step into the steaming hot shower spray and begin to wash myself clean of all the makeup troubles and sweat that accumulated on my body from dancing around in my room like a fool.

When I get out of the shower, I hold my towel around my body with my hair dripping down my back and jump down on my bed. I grab my phone and watch as my hair drip-drops down on my bedspread. If I towel-dry my hair right away, it'll get all kinky and knotty and it won't be wavy tomorrow morning. I have to let it air-dry for a little before I take a towel to it. I slide my finger across my phone screen and punch in my passcode. I don't have any text messages or missed calls, so I go straight to my Facebook app. Shane's phone is currently off, so if he has to get in touch with me, he has to do it through Facebook. I don't have any new notifications but I do have one new message. I don't even waste my time getting worked up about it. I just tap on it and take it for what it is.

**Sun, Oct 12, 2013**

**6:30 p.m.**

**Alex: **You look older than a freshman. How old are you? 15 or 16?

If I could look at my own face, I know my cheeks would be rosy red. I'm literally blushing right now. He's actually talking to me! If he didn't want to talk to me, he wouldn't keep asking me questions right? Maybe he really does what to talk to me! As I tap on the "reply to message" area, I notice the little green dot beside Alex's name. He's online… right now.

**Sun, Oct 12, 2013**

**8:48 p.m.**

**Me: **I get that a lot. But yeah, I'm 16, just turned 16 in September. How old are you?

I sit up on my bed and wrap my body towel over my head. I walk over to my dresser to find pajamas to put on. I'm freaking out right now. _Calm down, Jo… calm down. It's just like you're introducing yourself to Shane. Talk to him like he's Shane. Don't freak out. _I pull a t-shirt over my head and put on a pair of grey underwear. My phone lights up on my bed. _He messaged back!_

**8:50 p.m.**

**Alex: **I'm 17, I'll be 18 in a month. Is Jo short for something?

**Me: **Yeah. My full name sucks lol so everyone just calls me Jo.

**Alex: **What's it short for?

**Me:** It's horrible so I'm not gonna tell you lol

**Alex:** I'll just find out some other way then lol

**Me: **If you guess right then I'll tell you. Okay?

**Alex:** I'm not a good guesser but I'll try. Joanne?

**Me:** Nope

**Alex:** Jordan Joelle Johanna Joanna?

**Me:** No, No, No and No.

**Alex:** Josie?

**Me:** Closer but still no.

**Alex:** Josephina?

**Me:** Very close but no.

**Alex:** Josephine then?

**Me:** Isn't that just a terrible name? You're welcome to call me Jo.

**Alex:** I kinda like Josephine.

**Me:** Really? Ew.

**Alex:** It's not that bad. So why haven't I seen you around? Are you new to Garfield or am I just oblivious?

**Me:** I'm not new. I'm just a nobody. I tend to… blend in lol :b

**Alex:** Well if I look for you tomorrow, will I see you?

**Me:** Maybe. I sit behind your table at lunch I think.

**Alex:** Well I'll be looking for you tomorrow. Is that really you in your profile pic?

**Me:** Yeah. I'm not a fake profile I swear lol. Paranoid?

**Alex:** Just trying to make sure that I'm looking for the right person. If I yell out your name in the middle of the cafeteria tomorrow you'll answer?

**Me:** Oh god please don't. That's me, I swear haha. I sit with my friend Shane near the garbage cans. Over by the condiment table by the staircase. Just look for me.

**Alex:** What are you gonna be wearing?

**Me:** Umm… peach I think. Just look for the girl with really long hair and that's me.

**Alex:** I'll be looking, freshie.

**Me:** Okayy lol. I'll wave to you or something.

**Alex:** Okay that sounds good.

Okay, so I REALY have to dress nice tomorrow. I have to wear the peach shirt, the skinny jeans… EARRINGS! I need earrings! And my SHOES. What kind of SHOES will I wear?! I'm so nervous now… goodness! What if I wear the wrong thing?! He said he's gonna be looking for me. I'm freaking out right now… I'm freaking out! I really have to dress nicely!

_Holy shit, I'm nervous._


	5. I Could Get Used To This

_One step, two step. One step, two step. One step, two step. One….step, two step. Don't fall… you can do this. _I slide my hand down the railing carefully as I count inside my head. I got this… _One step, bottom step. _As soon as I reach the bottom of the steps, I can breathe again. As always, my grandma is in the kitchen fixing me something for breakfast. If I eat something with the way my stomach is currently feeling, I'm going to throw up. I'll probably settle for a glass of orange juice before I leave because I know how much my gram hates it if I don't eat a thing before going off to school. Maybe I'll even have a few bites of toast while I wait for Shane to knock on the door so we can walk to the bus stop together. Confidently, I walk into the kitchen and sit down at one of our kitchen table chairs. I can walk perfectly in these shoes while I'm walking across a flat surface; it's the steps that give me a tough time. "Good morning, grammy." I say in my usual cheerful morning voice. I'm not a morning person at all, but my gram always appreciates it if I don't sound like I just woke from the dead when I come downstairs in the mornings.

"Good morning Joey. Sorry breakfast is a little tight this morning, I have to do some grocery shopping while you're at school today." She walks over to the table without looking up at me and puts a plate of buttered toast and English muffins on the table. "Is there anything special you want me to…" Her voice trails off as soon as she takes one look at me. At first, her face is hard and ravaged with confusion but the longer she looks at me, the softer it becomes until eventually she smiles at me. "Special occasion?"

I start with shaking my head. "…Not really." Involuntarily, the corners of my mouth turn down into a slight grimace. "…Do I look okay?"

She puts her hand underneath my chin and lifts my head up. "Not at all. You look very grown up." With her thumb, she wipes away a smudge near the corner of my eye. "I didn't know you were interested in makeup though…"

"Can we NOT make a big deal about it? It's just makeup." I snatch an English muffin off the plate and look away from her. _You can't be snappy with people all day when they comment on the makeup, Jo. Get it together. _"It's just a little bit of makeup, Gram. It's makeup, clothes I never wear and perfume. That's all." I grit my teeth. I'm so uncomfortable I don't even think I can stand it. I'm so embarrassed. I feel like I'm standing naked in front of everybody.

"And you did something different with your hair…" She's referring to the natural waves in it. I sprayed it with a little bit of her hairspray after I ran a brush through it this morning. I didn't put a ponytail in it last night because I didn't want to wake up with ponytail creases. I guess it looks different but I really didn't do anything to it besides spray it with hairspray. "Did you borrow this makeup from some of your friends?"

"No."

"I didn't know you owned makeup, honey. I didn't think I'd ever bought you any… maybe I am getting old."

"Just shut up about the makeup!" I slam down my half-eaten English muffin and push my chair out from the table. "I bought it yesterday, okay? It's just stupid makeup. It's not a big deal, so just shut up about the freaking makeup." I stand up from the table and snatch my bookbag/purse and my gym bag. Over the years, there are a lot of things my grandmother has learned to deal with when it comes to me. She's been with me since I was two weeks old so she already knows how hot my temper is. But she NEVER tolerates my temper when it's directed towards her, and there's no way I'm getting away unscathed with this one.

"It'd be a shame to mess up your pretty makeup with a pop in the mouth this morning. It'd also be a shame to send you to school in a bad mood because you got grounded. So I'm going to pretend that you didn't just utterly disrespect me, Josephine." My grandma's disciplinary voice is so stern yet so calm that it's actually pretty freaking scary. "Pick up the food you just threw across my table, throw it in the garbage, and you may leave for school now."

I _am _sorry for just snapping on her the way I did, but I'm entirely too proud to apologize right now. I'll apologize to her when I come home later on, but there's no way she's getting an apology out of me right now. I really need to break something. I just need to hit something and break it. Respectfully, I push my chair in, toss the thrown English muffin in the trashcan and walk heavily out the front door. If I'm being completely honest, I must admit that I truly hate how hot my temper is. I hate it. I get so angry so easily and it's not just the kind of angry that I can just blow off. I get violently angry and I black out sometimes. It's not something I'm proud of, so I usually try to be selective about what pisses me off and what doesn't.

To top off the nasty exchange I just had with my grandmother, I slam the door when I walk out of it. The only thing that's preventing me from crying right now is the fact that I just spent nearly all morning making sure my makeup was as perfect as possible and to cry would be to ruin it. _You should just go home and wash all this shit off your face. It's not even worth it. People are just going to end up commenting on it all day anyway. If you can't take a little comment from grammy without blowing up, what are you going to do to the random people all day? _The tears in my eyes well up to the point that my vision is blurry.

I keep my head down and walk as fast as I can up the street to the stop sign that I catch the bus at. I hate everything about this. These jeans are so tight that my underwear are giving me a wedgie, this shirt won't stay on my shoulders, my hair is bothering me by being in my face, this makeup won't let me cry and these shoes are already hurting my feet. I feel like I look like a big joke. Nobody's gonna take me seriously in these clothes.

"Jo? Jo, wait up! Wait up! Why are you walking so fast?!" I hear being called out from behind me. It's Shane. I don't usually walk to the bus stop by myself. He usually comes to my house to grab me (and some food) before we walk to the bus stop together. His footsteps are fast and heavy, suggesting that he's either running or very close to it. "Geez…" His breathing is heavy when he finally catches up to me. I keep my head down so he can't see my face. I don't think I can listen to him talk about the makeup just yet. "Your… outfit is nice. I wasn't sure if that was you from behind…You're wearing heels."

"They're wedges… not heels." I mutter. "I had a fight with my gram this morning and I got a little fired up… sorry for leaving you hanging."

"Oh. What'd you and your gram argue about?"

I don't feel like talking much anymore and my face probably speaks volumes right now, so I just raise my head and let him see what I look like. I don't feel like I can even utter the words "make" and "up" in the same sentence at this point. "It wasn't even really an argument. It was me… getting smart with her and her threatening to pop me in the mouth."

"What happened to your face?"

"…I don't even want to talk about it at this point."

"Are you wearing…. Is that MAKEUP? And did you CURL your hair? But more importantly, who beat you into wearing makeup?!"

"Nobody, Shane. I…" I lean against the stop sign and blow a loose strand of my hair out of my face. "…I was messaging Alex last night, and I dunno… I kinda… I kinda remembered what you said about me at your grandparents' house. About me being pretty…" I just look at him, hoping that he can see the disparity in my eyes. "Be honest with me. I look like a fool, don't I?"

"No, you look… you look pretty. Really pretty, actually. I'm just trying to figure out what I said that alluded to you and makeup. I'm pretty sure I told you that boys _already _think you're pretty. I don't think I said 'Jo, you could be pretty if you wore makeup'… did I?"

"No but…" I roll my eyes up to the sky and grit my teeth. "Shane, what if I don't want to be a tomboy anymore? What if I don't want to wear basketball shorts, sports bras and Polo shirts anymore? What if I want to dress more like Stephanie and Leah and Heather and… you know… girls?"

"…Then dress like a girl?" He wrinkles his brow at me and shakes his head as if he doesn't understand what I just said. "I'm not sure why this is stressing you out so much. You have to elaborate a little more on this, Jojo."

"I just feel like…" I look down the street and see that the school bus is coming. I'd better make this quick. "I feel like I won't be 'Jo' anymore… you know? Like what if all this girl stuff doesn't make me, me anymore? Because isn't that what I'm known for? Aren't I known for being a tomboy? So if I don't want to be a tomboy anymore and I want to be more girly, does that still make me… me?"

"Can you still name all the presidents in alphabetical order, even telling me which ones were impeached and reelected? Do you still get pissy at the drop of a hat? Do you still hate being physically active, and are you still the best sister in the world?"

"…I mean yeah, but that doesn't really mean any—"

"Then you're still Jo."

* * *

"Before we get called out to go to the assembly, I'd like for you to get into your groups for the countries project. Groups NO BIGGER THAN FOUR, class. You are permitted to work alone if you wish. ONE country per classmate, per group. None of you in here will report on the same country, got it?! Countries will be given on first come, first serve basis. The sooner you assemble your groups, the sooner you can choose your country. I will let you know if your country choice has already been taken." Mr. Healy claps his hands after his big announcement and leaves us to our geography work.

I've already got my group and I've already got my country. I usually work alone on group projects. I actually enjoy working alone because I know things are getting done MY way when I'm the one doing it. I flip through my geography book to make sure Spain is really the country I want. I chose Spain last week when Mr. Healy first introduced the project to us. I tuck a bouncy curl behind my ear and close my book. I'm sure that Italy's the country I want. I could probably get this project done by Wednesday. All we have to do is find facts about our country and present them in a PowerPoint for the class, along with something tangible from the country; like a traditional food or something.

"Hey, Jo… back here!" Someone literally yells at me from the back of the classroom. I whip my head around fast and look around. Dressed in light blue skinny jeans, dark grey Ugg boots, a dark grey sweater complete with a white scarf, Steph is waving at me. She's sitting beside Leah and Heather. "Come here real quick!"

_Is she serious? _I slide out of my chair with a deep breath and start walking to the back of the classroom where they usually sit. I fix my oversized sweater so it looks presentable compared to their outfits. I'm half-tempted to just flat out ask her what she wants from me, but I decide to be cordial with them as they haven't really done anything crappy to me yet. "Yeah Steph?" I glance at Leah and Heather and catch both their eyes staring at my hair, my outfit and ultimately my made-up face.

"Do you wanna work with us?" Heather's squeaky little voice offers out to me. She looks like she genuinely means her offer, too. I really don't know what to say. "Everyone's working in groups and you're not… unless you want to be alone…" _So you guys basically want the smart one to do all the work, right? _

"U…Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'll work with you guys." _How could I say no to this offer? _"Did you guys already have… a country in mind?" I tuck my hair behind my ear again. "If you guys just tell me the country you want, I can have it done by Wednesday… I'll have the food here on Friday." _I'm literally so pathetic for this. _"Just let me know what country you want to do…"

Steph looks at me like I just spoke Japanese to her. "Jo… we want you to work _with _us, not _for _us. We…" She shakes her head and Leah takes over for her.

"We didn't invite you to work with us so you could do all the work. We'll pull our own weight. We already have everything all planned out… we wouldn't just bring you over here and expect you to do everything." Leah looks at me the same way Steph was looking at me.

Heather speaks up again. "We want to do Jamaica. We're gonna bake weed brownies."

"….Um…"

"We're kidding, Wilson." Leah laughs at my reaction.

"I knew that…" _Hey, that was pretty funny. Heather's funny… _I crack a little smile and take a seat right next to Leah. "…So I was thinking Italy, but I don't really care what country we do to be honest."

"Why don't we just do Turkey and bring in a turkey? That'll be easy." Steph throws out a suggestion.

"That's like doing Hungary and not bringing any food in." Leah throws her two cents in.

"Let's do Ethiopia." I try to ease my awkwardness. If I play this out right, this joke will go over fairly well.

Heather bites at my joke, unknowingly. "…Have you ever had Ethiopian food, Jo?"

"No, but neither have Ethiopians." They catch on fairly quickly and I make them all laugh. Well, after a shitty morning, this day is turning out to be a little bit better. They're laughing at my jokes and not treating me like an outsider. Maybe, just maybe, I can fit in with them. With a smile still spread across my face, I cross my legs to be ladylike and grab Steph's pencil. "But seriously, what country do you guys wanna do? We should probably get this done before they start dismissing us for the assembly…"

"We can just go ahead and do Italy." Leah shrugs her shoulders. "It shouldn't be that hard to find facts about Italy and make some type of pasta for the whole class."

"Yeah, Italy sounds good." Steph nods like she's totally in favor for researching Italy. "So we can start working right away, that way we don't have much to cram for by Friday. We can be at my house tonight to start the research part. Then Heather's tomorrow to start on the PowerPoint. Wednesday can be at Leah's to finish the PowerPoint… and Jo? Is it cool if we do the cooking part at your house on Thursday?"

"Yeah, that's totally fine. The kitchen is pretty small at my house, but if we need a big kitchen we can always go down the street to Miss Kelly's. Their kitchen is huge and she won't care if we use it." I already know that Shane's mom won't care if we use the kitchen at her house. My gram's kitchen is just entirely too small for all of us.

"If we have to do the cooking somewhere else, I'll ask my mom if we can do it at my house. I get that your mom probably doesn't want us to tear up her kitchen. Your mom the same way?" Heather chimes in to save me, but she just makes everything a little uncomfortable for me.

"No, it's not that. My kitchen is just super-duper small. I don't think my grandma would mind if we had to use it, I just think we should probably use Miss Kelly's because it's so much bigger than mine. I'll just tell Shane at lunch that we're coming down on Thursday."

Leah's eyes widen just a bit. "Shane _Ross_?"

"Yep." I nod.

"We're gonna be over his house?! Oh my god Jo, you should totally set us up! Does he ever like… talk about who he has a crush on? Oh my god, don't answer that." Her eyes are literally bugging out of her head. _Leah has a crush on SHANE? WHAT?! _"Steph told me that you were like…. Super close with Shane, but I didn't know you guys were that close…" It's weird to see Leah so excited over something; especially SHANE. "How often do you go over his house?"

"Every single day, and I'm not exaggerating. I've been there every day since we were like five." Shane's really not a big deal…. _He's a big deal to Leah, though._

"Have you stayed over his house?"

"Yeah… at least 100 times before. I stayed there last Friday night."

"Oh my god, where do you sleep?! Like on the couch… or… actually in his bed?"

"In his bed… Shane's like my brother. His mom is my mother, Shane's brothers are my brothers and Shane is my brother too. It's not that big of a deal, really."

"It totally is a big deal! He's like… the hottest freshman on the football team and you're his best friend. Have you seen him like… naked before? Does he have a nice body?"

"LEAH!" Steph nudges her with her elbow and shakes her head at me. "You don't have to answer that, Jo!"

I can't help but laugh at that. "No, it's totally cool… it's cool." I run my hand through my hair and try to be more serious. "I mean, I don't stare at Shane while he's naked and he doesn't stare at me while I'm naked. We change in front of each other but we don't get like… full on naked or anything like that. But when we were little, we used to take baths together." I flip my hair because this memory is just a little bit embarrassing. "When we were little, we used to go out in his backyard and play in the mud while my grandma was at work. His mom used to throw us in the bathtub together but we were little, you know?"

"I can't believe you're that close with Shane! You're so lucky!"

"Eh, I wouldn't say lucky… Shane's kind of just… gross." I shudder at thinking about how Leah could possibly have a crush on Shane. It's just weird to me, that's all.

"_All freshmen are now dismissed to the auditorium for the assembly; All freshmen are now dismissed to the auditorium for the assembly."_

With that announcement over the PA system, Stephanie, Heather, Leah and I all stand up and start walking to the door. I actually can't wait for lunch because I have so much to tell Shane now.

* * *

"The number one killer of teens these days is car accidents. These car accidents are most often induced by the consumption of alcohol and driving while under the influence." The guest speaker just stands in one spot, holding the microphone too close to his mouth. I stopped listening to him about ten minutes ago. Beside me, Steph is lying asleep on Heather's shoulder and Leah is busy scrolling through her phone with her headphones in her ears. Two rows in front of me, Shane is slouched down in his chair asleep too. I don't usually like to sleep in school, but I'm finding it increasingly hard to stay awake right now.

I was kind of hoping that Shane would sit beside me during the assembly so I had somebody to chat with while the speaker was lecturing us. His first period class is algebra as opposed to my geography so he inadvertently sat with his math class. I saved him a seat beside me but Mr. Smithton, the math teacher, is pretty strict when it comes to sitting where you're supposed to sit and things like that. Eventually, I slide down in my chair and rest my head in the palm of my hand as my eyes begin to involuntarily close. Hopefully this assembly thing runs over until lunch time…

_I can't wait to tell Shane everything at lunch. I actually wonder if he'll think that I'm selling out by being in Leah, Heather and Steph's group for geography. They invited me, it's not like I came asking them to be in their group. I wonder what happened to make them so interested in being my friend all of a sudden. I think maybe Steph convinced them that I'm not as strange as they think I am, and they just decided to give me a chance. I wonder if they would have invited me to be in their group if I didn't dress the way I did today. If I had on a Polo shirt and a pair of basketball shorts, would they still have asked me to work with them? After this project is over, will I still be included in their little group? If they do keep including me in their group, I have to keep dressing nicely. Grammy would give me money to go out shopping this week if I asked. I would get better at applying makeup if I kept practicing._

Just as I'm about to actually fall asleep, I feel something small tap me in my back, just below my neck. I lift my head up just slightly and look down the row at Heather, Leah and Steph. Steph is still sleeping on Heather's shoulder and Leah looks as if she hasn't budged in the last five minutes. Maybe I'm just feeling things. I put my head back down inside my hand and close my eyes again. As soon as I close them, I feel the same small object tap me in the back again. Okay, someone is definitely throwing things at me. I sit up completely in my chair and use my hands to shake my hair. Two small wads of silver gum wrappers fall out into my lap, proving that something was being thrown at me. "Who the fuck…" I mumble to myself, turning around.

Behind me is just a large group of juniors and seniors. Freshmen and sophomores usually sit near the front of the auditorium while the juniors and seniors sit in the back. I keep looking around, trying to find just who was throwing paper at me. While I'm looking, three girls use their index fingers and point to the people sitting in the middle of them, placing the blame. The two boys their pointing at surely do look guilty. The redheaded girl mouths the word "Sorry" to me and the other two, the dirty blonde and the Asian, look like they might burst out into laughter. Between them, the light-skinned boy with green eyes acts like he's whistling innocently while the shaggy-haired guy pretends to be really interested in his phone. _Is that… _

The green-eyed boy nudges the guy beside him with his elbow and makes him look up from his phone. He looks up from his phone and immediately at me, catching my eyes. _It is… _ I crack a soft smile at him. He told me that he'd be looking for me today… how'd he know it was me just from the back of my head? _Oh, okay it makes sense now. They threw things at me to make me turn around so they could see if it WAS me. _Instinctively, I raise my hand and wave at him. His off-kilted, goofy smile makes me want to laugh as he waves back at me. I know I'm staring at him, but I can't look away. He's staring at me too. _I wonder what his voice sounds like…_

Scaring me out of staring at him, the bell rings to dismiss all of us to lunch. Next to me, Steph, Heather and Leah all stretch out and get up from the mini-naps they took. I give Alex one last look before I get up and join the crowd heading to the cafeteria, and he winks at me. _Snap out of it, Jo. You gotta go find Shane… _For once, I listen to my thoughts and stand up to go find him.

I have to tell Shane about EVERYTHING. How awesome this day has been…. I have to tell him. I can't wait to tell him. I walk up the steps to get out of auditorium and start walking rather quickly to the lunch room. Leah has a crush on Shane, I saw Alex for the first time, he smiled at me, he winked at me… I can't wait to tell Shane! I make my way through the already-crowded cafeteria to get to the table that Shane and I always sit at. Before I could get there, I'm stopped though.

"Jo! Hey, Jo!" Someone calls out fairly loud from behind me. I immediately stop walking and turn around, surprised at how flowy and bouncy my hair is. I was expecting Shane, Steph, Heather or Leah to be the one calling me, but I'm totally wrong. In fact, Shane's already sitting at our table. Instead of one of them, it's the redhead that's calling me. …What could she possibly want? Behind her, the Asian and the dirty blonde are walking towards us too.

"Yes?"

"Your name's Jo, right?" She asks, cheerfully. _Obviously. I answered to you, didn't I? _It's so hard to be annoyed by her because she's so bright and sunny and just happy. I just nod the answer to her question and wait until she tells me exactly what she wants with me. "I'm April. I just wanted to say sorry for what happened in there. The boys can be pretty… stupid, sometimes." She flips her pretty, fiery red hair to the side and smiles at me. She's the prettiest redhead I've ever met, without a doubt. "They weren't trying to pick on you or anything; they just wanted to get your attention without embarrassing themselves."

"No, no, it's okay. It's totally fine, I understand." I shake my head and glance behind her at the Asian and dirty blonde who finally made their way over to us.

"Oh, and this is Meredith." She kindly motions to the dirty blonde, who looks at me like I'm a baby and I just did the most adorable thing she's ever witnessed. "And Cristina." The Asian looks at me like I'm fresh meat and she's a very hungry lion.

"I'm Jo, obviously…" I introduce myself to them. "It's nice to meet you guys."

"…Alex was right. She doesn't look like the rest of those crummy freshmen." Meredith doesn't even try to whisper, but it's clear that her comment was directed at Cristina. "She could work with us."

"…She's kind of…hairy, don't you think?" Cristina says back.

"I don't see any hair on her." April tries to defend me.

"I'm talking about the hair on her head. That's a lot of hair on her head." Cristina squints her eyes and looks at me. "I like her. She's furry. I shall call her 'hairball.' She's good."

Meredith puts her hand out. "What she means is that you're actually pretty cool for a freshman. And she likes your hair." She clears her throat. "We like to meet all of Alex's lady friends… he tends to drag in she-devils and lots of little whores, that's all."

"Oh." I purse my lips. "Well, it's nice to meet some of Alex's friends too…"

I must admit… I could get used to this.


	6. Pressure

**A/N: **Sorry about the long wait for the update. I was busy this weekend with family functions so yeah. Um, I get that the story may be taking a little bit of time to take off and get really dramatic and stuff, but I'm still in the introductory phase. Expect a serious dramatic turn of events in chapter 10. Thanks for reading guys :)

* * *

"You didn't tell Shane what I said this morning, did you?" Leah picks another slice of pizza up from the box lying in the middle of all of us and takes a large, cheese filled bite. Chewing loudly, she swallows it soon after she bit it and licks her lips. "I just really don't want him to know that I'm crushing. If he knows that I like him, it'll make it all weird and I'll never be able to sit by him in biology ever again. I heard we're getting new bio lab partners this week and I was gonna ask him to be mine. I don't want to make it awkward."

"I didn't tell him." I scrape the cheese off my pizza and take a small bite of the saucy crust. "But I think you should talk to him and stuff. Shane's super easy to talk to. I could totally tell him if you want me to. I won't make it weird." I tilt my slice of pizza to the side to fit it into my mouth since I have to be still because Steph is weaving a French braid into my hair. I don't have the heart to tell her that I'm tender-headed and I hate having my hair pulled in the ways she's pulling it. "You guys could just talk to each other for a while and get to know each other."

"Well, what does he like in a girl? Am I his type?" She sets her pizza slice down on the top of her knee and checks a message on her cell phone. It must not be that important, because she tosses her phone back on the couch where it was a second ago and pursues our conversation. "Like, is he into cheerleaders and volleyball players?"

"Mhm." I pick off a stray piece of cheese from my pizza and throw it on my plate with the rest of the cheese I took off. "Shane likes all girls. He likes girls that are funny, athletic, and self-confident with long hair. He likes it when girls know what they're talking about when it comes to sports. If you watch football with him, you're basically a keeper. And you have to be athletic, like I said. He's a jock, so he wants a jock girlfriend."

"…So what's wrong with him, then?" Heather shifts her position on Stephanie's couch, lying on her stomach with her feet in the air. "For you, I mean." She flips her bouncy bangs out of her face and turns her can of Mountain Dew up to her lips. "If he's simple and as nice as you say he is, then why haven't you two gotten together?" For some reason, Steph slaps Heather on her calf, as if she's telling her to shut up. Heather turns her head to face Steph and she looks a little irate. "What?! We don't judge. If she doesn't like boys, she doesn't like boys… I was just wondering."

"NO!" I shake my head quickly at that and nearly choke on my mouthful of Pepsi. Coughing, I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and keep shaking my head. "I am NOT a lesbian. I swear on my soul I'm not. You guys should know that right now. I'm sorry for any misconception, but I'm NOT gay. I…" I look down at the carpet and run my fingers across it since I'm sitting on the floor. "I hear all the rumors about me. I know everybody basically thinks that I'm gay, but I'm not. I just don't crush on boys as much as other girls do. But I've kissed boys before and I've had crushes… it's not like that."

"I told you guys she wasn't. I told you guys she was way too pretty to be a lesbian." Leah says, specifically to Heather but to Stephanie as well. "You can tell when girls are gay around here. All the gay girls in our school have the look, and they all hang out together."

"For the record, I already knew you weren't." Steph raises her hand. "You don't even like talking about your own vagina, so I couldn't ever imagine you liking somebody else's."

I really just don't know what to say to them. _Well, this is awkward. _I feel my eyes squint like they always do when I'm trying to find something to say, and my lips purse into a hard line. "…So yeah. I'm totally not a lesbian, guys." _This is just extremely uncomfortable. _"I um… I…" _If they're gonna be your friends, you're gonna have to tell them sometime. _"I didn't really grow up with a mother. I grew up with a very old-fashioned grandmother that spent a lot of time working. Shane was my first real friend, and after hanging out with him so much, I guess I just found it easier to identify with boys. I never had girlfriends to have slumber parties with and do the usual girl stuff with. Like obsess over cute boys and stuff. And by the time I made girlfriends in like… fifth grade, they already thought I was gay so they didn't invite me places…"

"I didn't know you don't have a mom. You never told me that…" Steph looks genuinely shocked.

"It's not usually the first thing I tell somebody. But yeah…" I just look at the three of them. "I don't like pity parties, and I don't want people to think that I'm the poor kid without her parents. And it's not like I'm hurting without them. I don't remember either one of parents and they haven't been around at all, so it's not like they left me or died and I'm emotionally scarred."

"So you've literally never played beauty parlor, Barbies, cheer camp, dance camp, house or mommy? You've really never done any of that?" Leah's practically begging me to tell her more.

"…I played Barbies with my gram once. She played with me for a little bit but then she had to go cook dinner. I tried to play with Shane once, but he ripped my Barbie's head off." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "…What's cheer camp, dance camp, house and mommy?"

Heather really perks up at this. "Back in middle school, me, Steph, Leah and Steph's sister used to get together and make up cheers and do pyramids and try backflips and front flips. That was cheer camp. And then we all used to pick a song off Leah's CDs and make up individual dances and my mom would judge who had the best dance. That was dance camp. House is when… like… you play house. You have a fake husband and you're each other's kids. Like I used to be Steph's daughter all the time. And mommy was just… we had our baby dolls and pretended like we were mommies."

"…I never did any of that. Me and Shane used to play cops and robbers… and we used to make mud pies and act out Sugarland music videos… I never did any of those things though. …They sound fun." _I never really thought about how much I actually missed out on… _"I did go to a mother/daughter party once. Shane's mom took me so I didn't feel left out. It was in my kindergarten class. There was a daddy/son day, and Shane got to go with his dad. I was all sad when the mommy/daughter day came around because my gram had to work and I had no mother, obviously. But Miss Kelly took me."

"That was really nice… has she always done that for you?" I can tell by the tone of Stephanie's voice that she's seriously bummed out that I didn't tell her about any of this sooner. She couldn't have possibly thought we were closer friends than that, though. I don't really tell anybody about my parents; not because I'm ashamed of them, but because I really don't like pity parties and when people feel sorry for me.

"Yeah. Shane's mom's been my mom since I was little. Everything my gram can't do for me, she does. There isn't much my gram doesn't do for me anymore though. She retired a couple years ago so she has a lot of free time to spend with me now. But back when she used to work long days and stuff, Miss Kelly would feed me and take care of me and stuff."

Heather glances down at my cheese-filled plate. "…So did your gram forget to teach you how to eat pizza then? Did she teach you that the cheese and the crust are the parts you don't eat?"

I giggle at that. "No." I pick up a piece of crust I left on my plate and pull it apart, watching the cheese ooze out of it. "I would've eaten the crust but you guys ordered stuffed-crust. I'm allergic to milk."

"Lactose intolerant?" Leah asks.

"No, literal milk allergy. Dairy products don't make me have to use the bathroom like lactose intolerant people do. Dairy products make my tongue bumpy and blistery and sometimes I'll get a rash. I'm allergic to it. Sometimes I'll eat ice cream or frozen yogurt though, but I have to take a Benadryl right after I eat it."

"That must've been a bitch and a half growing up."

"I guess. I used to live off popsicles, sherbet and Italian ice. I don't really like ice cream that much." I put my tongue in my cheek and look up at the cable box on top of the TV. It's almost 6:30 and we haven't even started the project yet. I won't lie; I was feeling a little bit anxious about actually doing the project about an hour ago, but ever since we really started talking, I feel okay with it. I think I might have misjudged both Heather and Leah. They're both not as bad as I originally thought they were. I clear my throat to speak. "So Leah, do you want me to tell Shane to start talking to you more?"

She immediately blushes when I say his name. "Enough about me and Shane… let's talk about… Let's talk about how Steph literally drools EVERY DAY over…" She makes her voice all high-pitched and smitten while she rolls her eyes. "Jaaaackson Averrry…."

"Who doesn't drool over Jackson Avery?!" Steph covers her face for a brief moment. "Seriously, who doesn't? He's like… the hottest senior on the planet. I'm still trying to figure out how the ditzy redhead got him."

I really like April, but I HAVE to laugh at the "ditzy redhead" comment. "Chill out… April's really sweet."

"I'm sure she's sweet, but COME ON. They're such an odd couple." _I guess Steph's right about that. They are sort of an odd couple… _"So are you crushing on anybody right now, Jo?"

"No." I shake my head. _They'll probably think I'm foolish for even being slightly interested in Alex, but it won't be nearly as ridiculous as Steph's crush on Jackson, right? _"Well there is one guy… that I've been talking to on Facebook… and we like… said hi to each other in school today… but we didn't really talk… but I guess… I guess he's cute. I wouldn't call it a crush…" I close my eyes, smiling so wide that my cheeks literally hurt. "Okay, you can call it a crush! He's a senior…"

"A senior?! Do tell!" Leah nudges me with her elbow.

"…His name's Alex. He's been really nice to me on Facebook but we don't… we don't talk in school because… I dunno… I'm nervous to actually talk to him I guess. But… his name's Alex and he's super… SUPER cute."

"Karev?! WHAT?!"

"You know him?!"

"N…No! I mean, I don't know him, but I know OF him! He's like… right there next to Jackson for hottest senior! You're talking to him on Facebook?! Talking to him like HOW?!" Leah's all in my face now, for the details.

"I don't know!" I cover my face just like Steph did. I'm so hardcore blushing right now. "He… He liked my picture and then… he messaged me and like… we were talking to each other for a while and he said he'd be looking for me in school and he was trying to get my attention in the assembly today. Then… you know Mer…Meredith? And Cristina? The two seniors? Well them and April came up to me in the lunchroom today and were like… 'We like to meet Alex's lady-friends.' It's just crazy…"

"OH MY GOD! YOU'RE SO GONNA GET WITH A SENIOR!"

"I don't think so. It's not like that! I… I suck at flirting!"

"Oh my god, imagine that!" Leah pounces on Heather next. "Heather, if Jo gets with Alex, she could totally get him to talk to Aaron for you!"

"…Who's Aaron?" I ask.

Heather's jaw drops. "Okay, seriously Wilson, what planet are you from? Aaron is Alex's totally dreamy younger brother…"

"…Don't count on me! I don't even… I haven't even spoken to him in person yet! Don't count on me…"

Steph pats me on my back. "Jo, Jo, Jo… Jo. We've got an awful lot to teach you." She shakes her head at me like I'm a hopeless case. "You found the look. You got the makeup, the outfits, the swagger down pact. Now we've gotta teach you how to own it."

"…Own it?"

"Own it. You're hot, and you made that statement today. So many comments about you were made today, you'd be surprised. So you're hot, and everybody knows that now. You've got the look. Now you need the attitude. Don't worry about it, though. As long as you've got us, we'll teach you." She runs her fingers over the fresh French braid she just put in my hair. "…Do you have any half-shirts?"

"…No? My grandmother would kill me if I ever…" _I really don't know about this… _"I don't have half-shirts. I have skinny jeans… and sweaters."

"Lift up your shirt." Leah stands up in front of me and offers me her hand to help me up on my feet too.

"…My shirt?"

"Yeah. Lift up your shirt." She pulls me up like I'm nothing but dead weight and stands in front of me like she's demanding me to do what she just said. _Why does she want me to lift up my shirt? I'm not feeling very well all of a sudden. I feel like I might puke. _Regardless of how queasy I'm feeling, I put my hands at the rim of my t-shirt and lift it up so that my stomach is exposed. "…You should totally let Heather pierce your bellybutton."

"…Why?" _Really, Jo? Why? Is that all you can truly muster up? What about a "hell no", "you're fucking crazy", or a "what the hell is your problem"? _"I… I… I mean… I mean… o… okay?"

"Sit down. Slouch… like rest your stomach muscles and slouch." With her hand on my chest, she pushes me softly down on the couch. _Oh god, I'm gonna puke… _I blindly sit down on the couch and slouch, just like Leah told me to do. As if this is something they literally do daily, Steph runs to her kitchen while Heather rummages through her black Coach purse. "Just relax. It doesn't hurt much. Heather knows what she's doing. She gauged both of her ears at home, she pierced my belly, Steph's belly and she even pierced Steph's tongue."

"….I… are you… Are you sure?" _I'm gonna throw up all over the place. I'm not afraid of needles or anything like that. I've never been afraid of needles. I'm just… about to put a hole in my body. I need a minute. I don't care how much Heather knows what she's doing. What if my bellybutton falls off? I'm… I'm smart. I have a fairly high GPA. I know how stupid this is… _"I'm gonna be sick."

"Jo, if you throw up on me I'll kill you." Heather squats down in front of me and puts her elbows on my knees. "Don't throw up on me. It's really not that big of a deal." Steph comes back in the room with a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a lighter, a rag and a really sparkly ring. "I pierced the whole cheer squad's bellies. I know what I'm doing. If you throw up on me, I'm killing you."

Leah sits beside me and hands me a throw pillow to hold to my mouth. Steph pours a crap load of alcohol on my stomach while Heather ignites the flame on the lighter and runs the very thick needle back and forth through it. With the rag, Steph dries off my stomach and looks up at me. "If you're afraid of needles, now would be the right time to look away."

"…I'm not afraid of needles." I bite down on my bottom lip and close my eyes. "Just do it… Hurry up and just—" I don't even scream when I feel the needle push through my skin. I just grit my teeth and grunt. "What the fuck did you do?"

"I'm done." As soon as she takes the needle out, the threats the sparkly bellybutton ring through the new hole and screws a ball on the top of the rod. _It didn't hurt, but GOD I'm stupid. _"It shouldn't hurt when you get in the shower and stuff. Just be real gentle around it. It'll feel better by next week. Don't play with it. Let it sit still." _Who am I kidding? That hurt like a bitch. _"…Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. I just…" I stare down at my new stomach. I admit that it's rather pretty and it makes me feel way more attractive. But what the hell did I just do to myself? Grammy's gonna murder me. Grammy's gonna kill me. "I didn't know I even wanted my bellybutton pierced."

"It'll make you look better when you wear half-shirts and bikinis. Trust me." Leah dabs my stomach softly with the rag. "…You didn't even bleed. That's a good thing."

"…I don't wear half-shirts and bikinis on a daily basis."

"Well now you do." Heather cleans off her needle and throws it back in the little makeup bag she pulled from her purse. "You want us to teach you how to act like a girl, don't you? Like Steph said. You've got the look down pact. Now all you need is the attitude."

* * *

**Mon, Oct 13, 2013**

**8:02 p.m.**

**Alex: **For the record, that wasn't me throwing things at you today. It was all Avery.

**Mon, Oct 13, 2013**

**8:15 p.m.**

**Me: **Oh it wasn't now? Haha. If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was call my name.

**Mon, Oct 13, 2013**

**8:19 p.m.**

**Alex: **I wasn't sure if it was you or not. You can't tell much from the back of a head you know.

**Me: **Then I wouldn't have answered if it wasn't me.

**Me: **And for the record, I'm not mad at you for throwing things at me.

**Alex: **More importantly, what are we gonna talk about tomorrow?

**Me: **I don't really care. When are we gonna get the chance to talk though? We have two totally diff. schedules don't we?

**Alex: **I thought you were eating lunch with me tomorrow?

**Me: **Am I supposed to?

**Alex: **April said she told you to sit with us tomorrow at lunch.

**Me: **Oh. Well she didn't. It must have slipped her mind or something. But idt I'll be able to.

**Alex: **Why? I'll save you a seat.

**Me: **Bc I sit with my friend Shane and I don't want to leave him alone at the table we sit at.

**Alex: **He can come too? Lol that doesn't make sense. Why wouldn't he be able to come with you?

**Me: **Uh, bc we're freshmen and you guys are seniors.

**Alex: **Well I'm inviting both of you guys over. As long as you're not annoying you guys are cool. But if it would make you feel better, I could always come sit by you.

**Me: **Why would you try to make me feel better? Lol I don't really matter.

**Alex: **I just know how my friends can be sometimes. They can be a little overwhelming for ppl. sometimes I cant even stand them either

**Me: **Oh. Well idc where we sit tomorrow, just as long as we talk I'm cool

**Alex: **Yeah but what do you want to talk about tom.?

**Me: **Idk… We could talk about music or sports or something

**Alex: **What do you know about sports?

**Me: **I know everything! Haha. you'd be surprised.

**Alex: **Do you play any sports?

**Me: **No :( unfortunately I'm not very athletic but I love to watch. How about you?

**Alex: **I play football basketball and wrestle and I used to play baseball when I was younger. I might play baseball again this year bc its senior year and I wanna do it all lol

**Me: **I think I've seen you play fball before. You play wide receiver with Jackson right? Me and my friend Stephanie go to every game

**Alex: **I guess you really do know your stuff lol. yep I'm wide receiver.

**Me: **I told you I know all about sports ;)

**Alex: **Well what do you know about music then? What's your favorite song?

**Me: **I don't really have a favorite song. I love every song I have on my ipod basically

**Alex: **So what do you have on your ipod then?

**Me: **Uh… lots of music. Lol idk if you even listen to have the junk I listen to.

**Alex: **I bet I do. Do you have a fav. Singer?

**Me: **Tell me yours first.

**Alex: **Don't have a fav. Singer but lately I've been feeling Jason Derulo's stuff. I workout to most of his stuff.

**Me: **So you like that wiggle song lol

**Alex: **Yeah that's a good one lol. that and talk dirty

**Me: **I freaking hate talk dirty :( lol but we're wasting all of our conversations on here! we gotta save something to talk about for tomorrow!

**Alex: **true that. So I will be talking to you tomorrow right?

**Me: **Yep. At lunch.

**Alex: **Ok, now I have something to look forward to

**Me: **aw! :) :) :)

**Me: **Me too!

**Alex: **So I'll let you go to bed now. see you tomorrow.

**Me: **yep. Gotta go get my beauty rest.

**Alex: **you don't need it. goodnight.

**Me: **night.

I plug my phone into the charger and spring up off my bed. It's not even 9:30 yet, so I still have time. I really need to go talk to Shane. I haven't spoken to him since we walked home together this afternoon. I slide my dingy flip flops on and shut my bedroom door. "Grammy, I'll be right back. Don't lock the door on me." I call out to her. She's in her bedroom putting her nightclothes on because she just got out of the bath. I begin with running down the steps but quickly switch to running after I feel the new, foreign object stuck through my bellybutton. It's sore as hell. I cup over it with my hand to cradle it and keep it from jingling up and down, causing me discomfort when I walk and run.

I still can't believe I did this.

* * *

"I was beginning to think you just weren't gonna tell me about your adventures with the in-crowd." Shane whizzes around his kitchen like a buzzing bee trying to fix himself the only meal he can't possibly screw up; peanut butter and jelly. Shane's mom always permits him and his brothers to have a snack before bed. That's one of the things I always liked about staying over Shane's house. My gram never let me have food before bed because she said I'd have nightmares for it but Shane's mom never lets the boys go to bed on an empty stomach. I like that. "I thought you forgot about me already."

"Yeah, well." I kick off my shoes at the back door and hop up on one of the kitchen's bar stools. "I have a shitload to tell you about." I drum my fingers along the countertop, trying to figure out where to start. "So how do you feel about Leah?" I'll just start with the least dramatic. "Like what do you think of her, as a person?"

"…I think she's cool." He shrugs, throwing the butter knife he used to spread the peanut butter with in the sink. "She's pretty in the face, she's a good cheerleader and I guess she's nice when you get past her sarcasm and stuff. Why?"

"Because she has a serious crush on you." As soon as he puts his sandwich down on the island, I pick it up and take a decent sized bite. I know he probably wants to slap me, but he won't. "And it's serious, too. She thinks she sun shines out of your ass. She's dying to get to know you. She really wants to just talk to you and stuff. I think you should talk to her. I think you two would really get along."

"Leah likes me?"

"Yeah. A lot. She thinks you're her knight in shining armor. She goes all googly-eyed whenever your name comes up. She spent the better half of our time together questioning me about you. She really likes you. Give her a chance." I grab Shane's glass of grape Kool-Aid and take a sip of it to wash down my bite of his sandwich.

"…Hmm. I might have to think about that. I mean, she's not ugly. But is that it? Is that all you guys did was talk about Leah's crush on me?"

"No." I bite my lip. "Before I tell you something…" I stop talking because I feel like I'm heading this in the wrong direction. I open my mouth to try again. "They were asking me questions and stuff. Like, they were getting to know me as a person. I told them about Alex and they found that so amusing. Let me just say, for the record, I never knew just how much I wanted to have girlfriends. You're amazing and all, but… the connection that I had with them tonight was so… I don't know… it felt… like I actually belonged there with them." Shane nods, letting me know that he's not mad at me or angry. He understands. "Like I was able to be a GIRL tonight. And they basically told me that they want me to be with them. They pretty much told me that I _do _belong with them. It never really occurred to me how much I really wanted to fit in, Shane. I really, really, really wanted to fit in with them. I wanted that girl connection. I can't believe I enjoyed myself as much as I did…"

Shane just gives me another nod. He really does understand me. He knows when I'm asking him to comment and when I'm asking him to listen. With that being said, I just continue talking. "Then they started talking to me about how they think my… 'new look' suits me. Leah started talking about how I could be one of them. She said I have the look and all I need is the attitude. She said that I'm 'hot', and everybody sees that now. But they want to teach me how to act like a true girl. I guess it's not enough to look like one, I have to act like one too. And I guess I agree with them to a certain extent. I can't dress all pretty like I did today and still sit with my legs open like a dude. I do have to learn how to act like a lady. But…" I look away from his eyes for this next part. "I consider myself a very smart girl. I have a high GPA, I make good grades… I'm smart. But I did something so dumb tonight, Shane. I literally feel like I'm the biggest idiot on the face of the Earth."

"You're not stupid though. You're smart. Everybody has a lapse of judgment every now and again. …But what did you do?"

"…I was so engrossed and infatuated with the idea of actually… actually being… you know… considered one of the _hot _girls. It's like I turned off all my judgments and common sense. I let Leah talk me into it and Stephanie like… coerced me. Plus, Heather was in my ear too. So I just… I caved in. I knew it was stupid, but I did it anyway. I'm such an idiot." I stand up from the stool and step back in front of Shane so he can see my full body. I'd rather show him than tell him. I don't think I can say it just yet. I'm too ashamed of myself to say it.

"Jo, are you gonna tell me what you did?"

"…Just look." I lift up my shirt quickly and show him. Around the rim of my bellybutton is very red and a little bit swollen. It looks a little bit bruised to me, but the sparkly diamond star-charm is just so pretty that it takes away from the redness, swelling and bruising. I don't know if I'm more ashamed at the fact that I actually did it, or the fact that I LOVE it. "I let Heather do it. Right then, right there. I let Heather do it."

"…You're not serious." He looks away from me. "Jo, tell me you're kidding. Tell me it's fake. Please tell me you weren't THAT dumb."

"I was that dumb, Shane. I was that dumb…."

"…Wh…WHA… What… WHAT did you let them do to you?! WHAT DID YOU LET THOSE GIRLS DO TO YOU?" Shane's naturally dark skin lightens up in the face, probably because he's beyond pissed at me. "YOU LET THEM DO THAT?!"

"…It's… yeah." I nod and finally let my shirt down. "They just talked me into it. I mean, I really like it. I'm pretty much in love with it. I think it's pretty and it makes my stomach look a little more… cute. I really love it. But I just can't believe I let HEATHER do it."

"It's gonna get infected! Take it out! Take it out right now, Jo!"

"Don't you think I already thought about taking it out, Einstein? If I could take it out I would…"

"You can take it out. You just don't WANT to take it out."

"…No, I don't want to. I don't want to take it out. I like it. I didn't go through that pain for nothing. If it gets infected, it gets infected. But I'm not gonna take it out. If I take it out, I let her stick a needle through my skin for no reason."

He shakes his head. "…And so it begins."

"What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"The changes! You said you wouldn't, but here you are! First you start dressing like them, then you let them give you a piercing, and now you're gonna start acting like them? God, you even sound like them. You've said more cusswords to me in the last 24 hours than you've ever said to me in your life." He tunes his nose up at me. "…Have fun with them. Just remember who liked you back when you were pathetic little ugly, unattractive Josephine."

"SHANE, IT'S NOT LIKE THAT!"

"Oh, bullshit Jo. You'd do anything for a little taste of popularity. Now that you've got it, you don't want to turn back. Look at yourself! They don't like you! Since when do Heather, Leah and Stephanie invite you over? Since when do they want to be bothered with you? No amount of makeup will change who you are on the inside. Weren't you just bitching at me this morning about how you didn't WANT to change? What happened between this morning and this afternoon? It's just a matter of time before you leave me in the dust."

"It's really not like that! Shane, I swear to God it's not! If you really want me to take out the belly ring, I will. I swear I'll take it out right now. I will…" My eyes start to well up with tears. "The last thing I wanted was for you to get mad at me. You're the… you're the only person I can talk to about this. I just… I want things to be different! I don't want to be boyish anymore. What's so wrong with me wanting to be girlier?"

"At what expense though, J?! Since when does being girlier translate into putting a HOLE in your body?!"

"….I don't know." I blink once and the tears softly stream down my cheeks. "Look, I know it was stupid. I really do know how dumb it was. But I like it. I'm not proud of myself for it, but I like it. But if it really… If it means losing you, then I don't want it. I'll take it out right now. All the belly rings in the world aren't worth losing my best friend."

"Don't cry, J." He's beginning to soften up on me. "I'm sorry for blowing up on you. But… I just don't want to lose you. I… I know how important it is for you to fit in with the other girls in our grade, especially now that you and Alex are starting to like each other. Believe me, I get it. I just don't want you to lose yourself in all this. Please don't let Heather, Leah and Stephanie clone you. There's a million Heathers, a million Leahs and ten billion Stephanies, but there's only one Jojo. Don't become one of them. Don't let them talk you into doing things."

"…I know. I go so caught up in my shit. But I really do think that they like me. I think they like me for me. They talked to me a lot today and they really wanted to get to know me. The bellybutton piercing thing was just me being stupid and not knowing how to say no to them. I'm an idiot."

"You're not an idiot. Stop saying that."

"I made an idiot move." I sigh. "…I gotta go back home before my gram locks me out and decides to go to bed. Thanks for listening to me…And I'm sorry. For… being… an inconsiderate idiot."

"You don't have to apologize to me. I love you, Jojo. When I yell at you, it's because I love you."

"I love you too, Shaney." I walk over to him with outstretched arms. He gives me a really tight hug. _You should probably tell him about lunch too, Jo. _"Oh, and make sure you dress nicely tomorrow. Me and you are eating lunch with seniors."

"…Huh?"

"Just go on my Facebook and read through me and Alex's messages from tonight."


	7. Explained

"_But I'm only human and I bleed when I fall down. I'm only human and I crash and I break down. Your words in my head, knives in my heart, you build me up and then I fall apart 'cause I'm only human." _After skipping about a million different songs, I finally decided to let this one play all the way through. Being that this is virtually the only class I don't have with any of my friends, I normally just pop in my headphones and do some sort of busywork. It's only a study hall so the teacher doesn't mind much if I listen to music while I work. Most of the other kids fall asleep or spend their time talking during this time, but I almost always do schoolwork. But today, I'm honestly just mindlessly scribbling down my chemistry notes. My mind is way too busy to even think about what I'm writing down. I'm too concerned about lunch next period, which happens to be in a little less than fifteen minutes.

I spent the whole day so far thanking God that it's Tuesday because Tuesdays are study hall days instead of gym days which means I don't have to worry about what I smell like while I'm having lunch with Alex. I don't think I've ever been this nervous for something in my life, though. Number one, I absolutely suck a flirting, and number two, I absolutely suck at holding conversations with people I hardly even know. I can already tell that I'm going to completely blow this. _What if he decides that he doesn't like me? Or what if he gets a good look at me and realizes I'm not all that pretty?_

And as if I'm not already nervous enough, I can't stop thinking about me and Shane's argument last night. Honestly, the last thing I ever wanted to do was to hurt him by all of this. I still feel like myself, but I don't think Shane thinks I'm still myself. He hasn't spoken to me at all today. Given, we don't have any classes together until after lunch, but still. It's not like him to not have said anything to me. He came and got me from my house this morning with nothing more than a "hey", and we walked to the bus stop in silence. I don't think he's totally forgiven me for letting Heather pierce my bellybutton yesterday, and I really don't think he appreciates the fact that I'm showing it off in school today.

I'm not dressed like a total slut or anything like that. My shirt just comes up slightly to actually show the piercing off. I don't own any crop-tops or half-shirts so I settled for a long-sleeved, loose fitting shirt that is made longer in the back and shorter in the front. My shirt is a really bright shade of turquoise and my pants are dark skinny jeans. I found a pair of gold flip flops in the back of my closet and tied my hair back in a side-swept ponytail. Compared to what the better half of the girls in my class look like today, I'm dressed like a saint.

When the bell rings to dismiss us to lunch, I shove my chemistry notebook into my binder, gather up my purse and push my chair in. Leah told me this morning in biology that a lot of boys in our grade have been saying things about me, and I can't help but wonder what they're thinking when I walk out of the classroom. Leah, Heather, Steph and even Shane have been telling me that lots of boys and even some girls have been commenting on how pretty I look, but why hasn't anyone said anything to me? I haven't heard anyone say anything. Then again, maybe I'm just not around when they say things. I stop at my locker to throw my binder in there and keep walking up the hallway.

_Am I supposed to just go right over to the senior table? I can't just go over there and impose that I'm having lunch with them. What if I accidentally sit in someone's seat? Maybe I should just wait for someone to invite me over. I should just act like I totally forgot and wait to see if they remind me. I don't know. _"So guess who got Leah Murphy's number last period?" Shane's voice rings out from behind me as he catches up. _Oh, he's talking to me. He must not be too pissed at me. _"And guess who's supposed to have a phone-date with her tonight at 8:00?" He seems really happy and I'm glad that I took it upon myself to say something about Leah's crush on him. Maybe this way I can stay in both Leah and Shane's good graces.

"See? I told you that you'd like her once you got to know her. At the wedding, just remember who set you two up with each other." I adjust my purse on my shoulder and glance over at him. He's all smiley and giddy which, in turn, makes me smiley and giddy too. I really do love seeing Shane happy. He hasn't been the happiest kid since his dad died. "So how'd you do it? Did you just… like say hi to her or whatever?"

"Mr. Greyson told us to work in groups of two for our cell-labeling worksheet. I figured that Stephanie and Heather would probably work together so I just asked her to be my partner. We started talking about football and cheerleading and we exchanged numbers. We have a phone-date tonight at 8:00… and I'm eating lunch with her, Heather and Stephanie." He winces at that, because he knows that I'm probably going to be pissed that he's ditching me for lunch. I kind of am a little disappointed that he would ditch me like that. Now I'm stuck eating lunch with the seniors all by myself. It's almost like he doesn't appreciate the fact that I got us the opportunity to eat with the seniors. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

"…No, I guess not." I shrug. "I mean, with the way I'm feeling right now, I'd rather eat lunch with you guys. At least I'll know what to say to y'all." I stop walking as soon as we enter the cafeteria, because I assume this is where we part ways. He'll be sitting at the total opposite end of the cafeteria that I'll be sitting at. "I guess I'll see you in English."

"You'll be fine without me. They wanted to have lunch with you, not me. Just…" He looks over at the table Leah, Heather and Steph sit at. I can tell he's really eager to get over there. "Just be yourself. I know I've been saying that to you a lot lately, but I really mean it right now. Don't go overboard trying to impress them and don't say anything you wouldn't say to me." He leans in and gives me an awkward side-hug. "You look pretty and you'll be fine."

"…Thanks." I clear my throat softly. "And uh… you just don't be too big of a flirt. Be… be cool over there. Try not to miss me too much." I side-hug him back and let him go. "See you in English." He nods "goodbye" to me and gladly walks over to the table the girls sit at. I'm glad one of us will be able to have a comfortable lunch today. I roll my eyes and start walking towards the lunch line. I might as well grab a water and a tray of something I most likely won't eat.

_How shitty would it be if Alex isn't here today? I've seen April, Meredith, Cristina and Jackson. I haven't seen Alex. Time to come up with a Plan B. _I fish through my wallet to find a dollar to pay for my water as the lunch lady loads my tray with chicken nuggets and tater tots. _So if Alex isn't here today, you can always eat lunch in the bathroom. That way you don't look like a loner if you sit alone and you don't look like an intruder if you just go and sit with Shane and the girls. Lunch in the bathroom… that's Plan B. _"Thanks." I mumble to the cashier when she checks me out. I hold my tray and just stand there for a second, lost. I can't just go over there while Alex isn't there. He's the one that invited me over there anyway. _Go get ketchup, a fork and napkins, idiot. Don't just stand here looking like a lost puppy. _

I put my tray down on the condiment table and squirt some ketchup in one of the empty spaces on it. I grab about three napkins, a fork and nervously pick up my tray again. The bathroom is sounding better and better the more I just stand here. _Does anything ever come easy to you? Who were you kidding anyway? Like seniors would really invite you to have lunch with them. Of course he stood you up. _Well, to the bathroom I go. I let out a long, hard sigh and start walking towards the bathrooms. _Don't cry until you get in the bathroom, Jo. I mean it._

"I thought you said your friend was going to eat with us too." Someone says from behind me. His voice is rather deep and gravelly, like he's permanently sleepy. It's not a bad sound though. I actually love it. Slowly, I turn around with my tray in hand and finally come face-to-face with him. He's dressed very nicely with a dark red Abercrombie shirt on and light brown cargo shorts. His white Nike tennis-shoes look like he's never even wore them before. And to further my surprise, he smiles at me.

"…W…Shane had other plans." _He didn't stand you up! He didn't! He actually came to FIND you! _"So I guess it's just gonna be me." _Dear God, I hope my makeup looks good. Does my breath smell? What about my armpits? I hope I don't have anything stuck in my teeth. How does he look this perfect? He looks like he just literally stepped out of an Abercrombie ad. Fuck, I forgot to chew a piece of gum before I came to lunch. Dammit._

"Well I'm happy with just you." He shrugs his shoulders and starts walking across the middle of the cafeteria to get to his table. I follow closely behind him and I can seriously feel the thousands of eyes staring at me while I walk with him. I can just imagine what they're probably saying about me. We get to the table and like a perfect gentleman; he pulls out the little blue chair for me to sit in. "I know you guys have already met, but yeah… these are the guys. That's Mer, Cristina, April and Jackson. Guys, this is my friend Jo."

I put my tray down in the spot that Alex saved for me to sit at and wave at them politely. I can't afford for them to think I'm a bitch or anything like that. As if they've known about me for a while now, they all wave back at me and continue doing what they were doing before I got there. Meredith keeps flipping through a copy of Cosmopolitan magazine, chewing on a purple grape. Jackson and April seem like they're lost in each other and Cristina is busily texting on her cell phone. "You can loosen up, hairball. We aren't gonna crucify you." Cristina mutters at me, not even looking up from her phone.

"She means you can talk to us because we won't treat you like a nothing little freshman." Meredith flips the page of her magazine. Her tone sounds like she's unamused with everything in life.

"Who are you, the Cristina whisperer?" Jackson tosses a red Dorito chip at Meredith and laughs like it's the greatest thing he's ever done.

"Pretty much, yeah." Meredith doesn't even acknowledge the chip resting in her lap.

"Um, yeah. We're not going to be mean to you. We're never mean to any of Alex's girlfriends." April leans across the table specifically to touch my arm with her pale, bony little hand. "The best way to fit in with us is to just be yourself. Don't be so nervous. It's not really a privilege to be eating with us."

I nod at April. I know she's telling me that I shouldn't be nervous, but I am. I'm not even hungry, that's how nervous I am. I don't have much of an appetite, but I am rather thirsty. I reach up and grab my bottle of water and unscrew the cap. I really just don't know what to say to them. Their interests are probably completely different from mine. _Just try to act as natural as possible. _Underneath the table, I cross my legs and fold my hands in my lap. If I take a sip of my water, I think I might throw it back up. So even though I'm thirsty, I won't drink. I am careful not to slouch too lazily though, because my belly ring is very sore.

"So, chicken nuggets? Really?" Alex shifts his body so that he's facing me. "They have the incredible pepperoni rolls today and you opt for chicken nuggets instead?"

I lick my lips and give him a slight smile. "I just like sticking to what I know I like…"

"You don't like the pepperoni rolls?" He looks at me like I just told him the tenth wonder of the world.

"I've never even tried them. I watch Shane eat them all the time but they're just like… I don't know. I don't know if I like them." I can't stop smiling while I'm talking to him no matter how hard I try.

"Here." He uses his butter knife and his fork to cut off a small corner of it. "You have to try it. It's amazing and I guarantee you'll fall in love with them." He holds the fork by my mouth.

I lunge forward and take the bite he offered me. It actually does taste very good, but I can taste the cheese in it while I'm chewing. I swallow it and wash it down with my water. "It really is good… wow. That's… that's good." I nod. _Your tongue is gonna be so gross and painful later on tonight. _"I'm surprised."

"I told you it was pretty good." He puts the fork and knife down and hands me a napkin. "Do you want half of it?"

"Oh, no. No thanks." _Now he's probably gonna think you lied about it tasting good. _"I… um. There's cheese in it. I'm allergic to milk. I'd love to have half of it, but I can't."

Jackson leans forward so he can talk to us. "Geez, Karev. It's only your first date and you already nearly killed the girl."

"Shut the hell up, Jackson." He waves him off with his hand and turns back to me. "You should've told me told me you were allergic to milk. I wouldn't have even offered you something with cheese in it. I'm sorry." His apology seems sincere and the tone of his voice suggests that maybe he thinks he just blew it with me. _He's really sweet._

"It's seriously okay. It's not that big of a deal and I'm not mad at you. You didn't know." A thick piece of my bangs falls in front of my face and I sweep it back behind my ear. "And you didn't almost kill me." I wink at him to let him know that it's honestly okay. Again, he smiles at me and takes a bigger bite of his pepperoni roll. I take a sip of my water and fold my hands in my lap again. "…So this is a date?" I can't help but giggle. "Had I known this was a date, I would've put a dress on or something."

"This is totally not a date." He shakes his head and shoves a French fry in his mouth. "This is just us getting to talk to each other, that's all. Not a date."

"So are you saying this isn't what a date would be, or are you saying a date wouldn't happen here?" I stab a tater tot with my fork and stick it in the ketchup.

"I'm saying if this was a date, my friends wouldn't be around and I would be able to talk to you without them butting in on our conversation." I just nod and put another tater tot in my mouth. I'm pleasantly surprised with our lunch date, actually. I wasn't expecting the seniors to be so nice about me sitting over here and I definitely wasn't expecting to feel this way about Alex. I'm like… so far infatuated with him. It's unlike anything I've ever felt for a boy before. I mean I've obviously had crushes in the past, but I don't think this is just a crush. I don't know what this is, but it's definitely something bigger than a lousy crush.

_I wonder if this will ever get serious with him. I can't imagine us staying friends, especially with the way I'm feeling about him. It's just hard not knowing if he feels the same about me. For all I know, he might not even be interested in me. I'm just… scared, basically. _"So just one question…one thing that I have to know."

"So ask." He chews rather obnoxiously on his mouthful of French fries. If it were Shane chewing the way Alex is chewing, I would have probably slapped him already. But for some reason, when Alex chews like that, it doesn't bother me.

"…Should I watch my back? I mean…" _Just tell him what you mean. Just say it. You're never gonna get anywhere with him if you can't have a conversation. _"I saw all the stares I was getting just walking over here with you. I guess I just wanna know if I should watch my back for any… jealous exes or whatever. Even though we're just friends, I know how girls can be."

"Who cares if they stare? You don't have to watch your back for anybody because I'm not even talking to anybody else right now. They'll see you with me and they'll just get it." I look down at my tray, which makes my bangs fall in front of my face again. This time though, he reaches over with his left hand and tucks the hair behind my ear for me. "I just think that what's understood doesn't need to be explained to people."

_What's understood doesn't need to be explained. _I run that sentence through my head once again. Maybe there's some truth to that. _So does that mean that we're going to eventually become a couple? _You know what, I'm getting way too ahead of myself here. I'm just gonna take it as it comes and hope for the best with this thing. I think I think way too much.

* * *

"So um…" I turn the faucet on and hold my plate under the running water to clean the ketchup off it. "I was wondering if I can go to the mall today… so I can pick up some new clothes." I put the plate into the sink full of dishwater and turn to face my grandma. She's probably not going to do anything for the rest of the night besides do some yard work so I don't see the problem with me taking the car. "I'm running a little low on jeans and blouses." I know she'll understand what I mean when I say that I'm running low. She's not oblivious and she's seen the way I've been dressing these last couple days. I think she secretly likes the fact that I'm starting to dress like a lady.

Back when I was younger and couldn't dress myself properly, she practically played dress-up with me. In old photo albums and my elementary school pictures, I always had bows tied in my long pigtails or ponytails and my little sundresses used to coordinate perfectly with whatever pair of shoes she put on me. I remember going to the grocery store and running errands with my gram. Every time she took me out in public, strangers would stop her and tell her how much of a little baby doll I looked like. I think she's actually very pleased with the fact that I started dressing differently.

"I just took money out of the bank this morning to do the grocery shopping. Whatever money that's leftover is up in the cookie jar. Take whatever's in there." She scrapes the last little bit of macaroni and cheese into a Tupperware container and puts the lid on it. I grab another one of the croissants she made with dinner and start eating it. "Please be back home by 8:30, Josephine. My back is bothering me, I've had heartburn all day and I'd like to lock the house up early tonight so I can get some rest." I nod, pulling a flake off and putting it in my mouth. "Be careful driving across town."

"I will be." I shove the last piece of croissant down my throat and grab the cookie jar off the top of the fridge. Inside it, there's about $260. I probably won't spend all $260, but I'll take all $260 just in case. I shove the money in my back pocket and but the jar back in its resting place. I'll probably go see if Shane wants to come with me. Being that I have to be home early anyway, I don't think a mall trip will interfere with his phone-date with Leah. "I'll see you later grammy." I grab the car keys off the key rack and put the same shoes I wore to school on. I shut the door behind me and get straight into the car.

I don't think Miss Kelly had to work today which means Shane shouldn't be tied down with the boys. I'll be sure to tell Shane not to worry about money either. He'd probably say no to coming with me just because he doesn't have any spending money, but I think $260 is enough for the both of us. I'm not going on a huge shopping spree, I'm just picking up a few things to hold me over for the rest of the week. I park the car in the Ross's driveway next to Miss Kelly's red Trailblazer truck and get out. I giggle every time I walk past the word "Poop" in the driveway. It just reminds me of how ornery Shane and I both were when we were little.

I turn the knob to the front door and walk straight in their house. It smells like hardcore Mexican food in here, so Miss Kelly is probably in the kitchen cooking something. Nick and Matt aren't in the living room playing Xbox like they usually are and it's pretty quiet. Not that Pebbles, Shane's dog, barks much anyway, but she doesn't even budge. Pebbles is a really old Golden Retriever and she doesn't move much unless it's to eat or drink something. I kick my shoes off beside the door and walk through the living room and to the kitchen. Sure enough, Miss Kelly is standing at the stove. The radio's playing rather loudly and she's moving her hips along to the beat of the song while she sings. "We were as one babe, for a moment in time. And it seemed everlasting that you would always be mine. Now you wanna free so I'm letting you fly, 'cause I know in my heart babe our love will never die…"Miss Kelly's actually a really good singer. She's always singing and dancing while she does housework.

I scoot out one of the stools at the island and sit in it. I'm pretty sure she already knows that I'm here because the sound of the stool being pulled out is anything but quiet. I put my head down against the cool stone of the countertop and just listen to her singing. It's quite relaxing. "You'll always be a part of me. I'm part of you indefinitely. Boy don't you know you can't escape me. Ooh darling 'cause you'll always be my baby." _And we'll linger on. Time can't erase a feeling this strong. No way you're never gonna shake me ooh darling 'cause you'll always be my baby. _I sing inside of my head.

Shane's mom turns around to grab some paper towels off the island and gives me a very genuine "I'm-happy-to-see-you" smile. She reaches up and turns the radio down just a little bit. "There's my girl!" She nixes the paper towels and gives me a hug while I'm sitting down. "Oh, I missed you! I told you about not coming to see me. I told you I wanted to see you every day, didn't I? Since Shane never tells me when you're here…" She starts playing with my ponytail. "I'm making your favorite for dinner if you want to stay until it gets done. I even made half of it with no cheese."

"I was actually headed off to the mall. I wanted to see if Shane wants to come." I rest my head against her stomach while she plays with my hair. "And I already ate at home."

"What'd your grandma fix you to eat?"

"Pork chops, macaroni and croissants."

"That sounds good to me." She combs her fingers through my messy, curly ponytail. "But anyway, Shane's not here. He went out lifting at the gym with the football team… something about getting ready for Friday's game. He's actually gonna get some playing time on Friday and he wants to be at his best. He should be home by six. He didn't tell you?"

"No, but I mean… Shane doesn't tell me much lately. Especially with his phone still being off."

"His phone isn't off. I paid the bill on Sunday. It's on."

"Really?" I just shake my head. "That explains a lot."

"What's going on with you two, Jojo? Did you guys have a falling out? Is that why I haven't seen you since Saturday?"

"Kind of…it's just a really long story. I'll tell you all about it later." Just as I'm about to get up, my cell phone buzzes in my back pocket. I sigh and check it. Text message from a really weird number. I slide my finger across the screen, punch in my code and read the message.

**206-555-8781: **Hey, it's Alex. Ross gave me ur #. Hope u don't mind. I just wanted to talk to u.

_Oh shit, he texted me. _And inevitably, I can feel myself blush…


	8. The Bathroom

"So you never did tell me how your phone-date went with Leah last night." I wait at the stop sign before I start walking down the street to our houses. It's an awfully nice day for Seattle today. The little taste of humidity really makes me wish I had dressed better for the weather today. I was inside the air-conditioned school building all day so I guess it's excusable that I'm wearing a long-sleeved baseball t-shirt with the batman logo on the front and a pair of jeans and sneakers. "It's okay for you to question me about lunch with the seniors but it's not okay for me to ask about you and Leah?"

Shane hoists his backpack on his shoulders and starts walking with me. "She doesn't want me to tell people about it just yet, so I had to wait until we were out of school." I would offer to carry some of his football stuff home for him but I know he'd just tell me no anyway. "It went fine. We played twenty questions for a little while, so we could get to know each other. And we made plans for this weekend. I'm gonna go over to her house so we can watch a movie together. It's nothing too serious just yet. What'd you and Alex talk about at lunch today?"

"Stupid stuff, really. He asked me if I wanted to hang out with him after school tomorrow, but he didn't realize that he had football practice until Jackson reminded him, so we had to cancel." I bend down and pick up the shoulder strap to his football uniform that he dropped. "The more I talk to him and stuff, the more I realize how much I don't think I can do this. Maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself, but I really don't think I can be his girlfriend."

"Why not? I thought you liked the guy. Now you're telling me if he asked you to be his girlfriend, you'd say no?"

"It's not that I don't like him, because I really freaking do. I'm just… scared, I guess." I sigh and look up at the sky while we continue to walk. "He's a senior and I'm a freshman. Like okay, I get that we're in two totally different mindsets right now. He's graduating and I'm just getting started with high school. Like… what if he's looking for a…mature relationship? More mature than I can give to him, if you know what I mean…"

"Well I think you're mature for your age. And he's only like two years older than you. You just turned sixteen and he's what… about to turn eighteen? And like I said, you're pretty mature for your age. You're not like all the other freshmen, I don't think. I think you worry too much."

"That's not exactly what I meant, Shane. You know that." I give him one of my "I'm-annoyed-with-you" side glares. "You know what I meant."

"You're worried he's gonna be all about the sex? Why are you so worried about that?"

"Because. That's a big part of any relationship, isn't it? Don't get me wrong, I'm not like… against it or anything. That would make me hypocritical if I were. I'm just saying… like what if I don't want to? And I can't get mad at him when he wants to because he IS a senior, you know? I'm just trying to look to all of my options if this gets serious. And that's one thing that worries me…"

"Then say no, Jo. It's not that hard to just tell him that you're not like that. There's nothing wrong with the fact that you're not… a sexual kind of person."

"But I can't just lie to him if, and when he asks, y'know?" We both turn around a corner as we approach my house. "I can't exactly tell him that I'm not a virgin and then in the same breath, turn around and tell him that I'm not into sex. Get real, Shane. The guy would break up with me in a hot second if I pulled that shit."

"Okay, but why does he have to know about a stupid mistake you made back when you were fourteen? Why does he have to know if you're a virgin or not? Plus, I still don't even think that really counts. You didn't even know what you were agreeing to at the time. You didn't even know what you were doing when you were that young."

"…That has to be the dumbest thing you have ever said to me." I stop walking dead in my tracks to just stare at him. "You can't just wipe away losing your virginity because you were too young to know what went where. It doesn't matter if I knew what I was doing; HE knew what he was doing at sixteen years old."

"Say what you want, I still don't think a quickie behind a pool house counts as losing your v-card."

"Like yours was any better! Yours was in a closet at a sleepover while you were twelve. TWELVE. I still haven't even forgiven you for that one. You didn't even tell me, Cheyenne did! And you started crying when I asked you about it! Don't you go judging me for the circumstances I lost mine under." It still makes me a little bit mad to think about how he didn't even tell me. Granted, he was twelve, almost thirteen at the time and didn't know his ass from his elbow, but he still should have told me. It was at his cousin's birthday sleepover and he totally left me alone in a room full of people I didn't know while we watched Scary Movie 2. He came back like a half hour later and was acting all weird; like all he wanted to do was lie down and go to sleep even though it was only 12:00 in the morning or something like that. I started yelling at him to tell me what was wrong with him and he didn't even say anything. The girl he screwed in the closet told me.

I know that probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but it's a big deal to me. He was right there when I lost mine. Okay, not RIGHT there, but he was there and he knew about it. He even knew that the only reason I did it was because he was doing it. Shane's had sex with at least five different girls that I know of. (More than that if you count getting oral as actual sex) I only did it because he was always talking about it and reading those gross Playboy magazines and I didn't want to be left out anymore. So we were down at the YMCA one day during the summer and this older boy spent all day hitting on me. I think his name was Bryan or something like that. I didn't even want to do it honestly. I thought I did until we went behind that pool shed and my bathing suit came off. It was then that I was finally like "holy shit". But it happened, I'm still not sure if I even liked it, but I'm not ashamed of it. There are worse things I've done to be ashamed of.

"I guess I'll talk to you later. I'm gonna go in here and see if my gram needs help with dinner… call me later." I walk up to my front door and turn the knob. It's locked which is strange. Grammy never locks the door on me. I didn't even bring my house key with me to let myself in. "Crap." I mumble, pressing on the doorbell. Like always, Shane stays behind to make sure I get in the house alright.

"Oh, good! Jo, Shane!" What sounds like Shane's mother's voice rings out from behind me. Of course I turn around to see who's summonsing my attention. Just as I suspected, Miss Kelly is standing a couple houses down from me, waving and shouting to get both of our attentions. "Jo, honey! Your grandmother won't be home tonight, so you're supposed to come stay down here for the night." _Grammy won't be home? Where the heck did she go without me? _

Reluctantly, I step down from the porch with my purse still in my hand and start walking down the street to Shane's. It wouldn't be the first time my gram's left me with the Rosses. I don't mind staying with them, obviously. I do dislike staying down their house on school nights though. I never get much sleep in Shane's bed and I hate their shower too. Their tub isn't like mine at home and the hair gets stuck around the drain instead of going straight down it like the one at home. So every time I wash my hair at their house, I have to spend at least ten minutes cleaning out the shower drain. I probably just won't wash my hair tonight.

"Did she at least pack me a bag? I can't get into the house to get my things." I ask as soon as I walk up to their porch. "She could've at least told me she was gonna leave me this morning. I would've packed something for myself."

"No baby, she didn't pack you a bag. I don't think she planned on leaving you here. She should be back by tomorrow morning though, so there's nothing to worry about."

"She didn't pack my bag?" I literally kick my shoes off and slam their door shut behind me. "Now what am I supposed to do?! How am I supposed to take a bath tonight? How am I supposed to charge my phone? WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO WEAR TO SCHOOL TOMORROW?"

"Jo she didn't mean to leave you, babydoll. You need to go into the downstairs bathroom and take a minute to cool off."

"Well she should think about these things before she just leaves me! It couldn't possibly have been that freaking urgent that she had to up and leave without packing my crap! I don't have any underwear, I don't have my toothbrush, I'm NOT SLEEPING IN SHANE'S BED TONIGHT. I need to get some rest for school tomorrow, I don't even have my—"

"Josephine! Bathroom. NOW." Miss Kelly just points to the white door in the corner of the living room like she means business. "Go get yourself together and then we'll talk. You been around me far too long to act like you don't know that I won't talk to you when you act like this. Go sit in that bathroom until you're calm enough to talk to me without yelling." I let out a sharp breath, roll my eyes and stomp over to the bathroom door. "And don't you even think about breaking anything in my bathroom!"

I slam the bathroom door behind me, twist the lock and sit down on the toilet. Funny as it sounds, the only thing I can think about right now is how she really did spank me once for breaking the hamper in the bathroom. She's been telling me to "go take a breather in the bathroom" since I was like five or so. She always makes me come in here to cool down before we talk. She absolutely refuses to talk to me while I'm fired up, so if I want to speak with her I have to calm down first.

I don't really remember the reason why I got sent to the bathroom when I broke the hamper, but I know that breaking that hamper was one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. I think I was ten and I was mad about something and I started screaming at Shane's dad for some reason. Miss Kelly sent me to the bathroom and I kicked the hamper so hard it caved in and fell over. I guess she heard all the ruckus from the hamper falling in the bathroom, because she came into that bathroom and spanked me BAD. I'm pretty sure she spanked me with her flimsy little slipper, but that slipper HURT. _You deserved that one. You can't just go around breaking your mother's crap. _

The more I sit here on this toilet, the more I realize that I owe her an apology. I draft up an apology in my head before I go back out there and present it to her. _I'm sorry for yelling at you, mom. I just got mad that I have to stay here tonight with none of my personal things. I know my gram didn't mean to just up and leave me and I'm sorry for getting mad about that. _That ought to do it. I'll throw the "mom" in there just to let her know that I'm serious.

Up until last year, I used to steadily call Miss Kelly "mom", "mommy" or "ma." She loved me for it, actually. She doesn't hide the fact that she wishes I was actually her daughter. She'll tell anybody that'll listen that she IS my mother and I'm her child, including my gram. My gram even agrees with her in that aspect, and she was never offended when I called Shane's mom my mom. I literally started calling her my mother when I was in first grade and I didn't stop until eight grade year. She was noticeably heartbroken when I stopped, and she still hates it when I call her "Miss Kelly." I never told her this, or even Shane for that matter; but I stopped calling her that because of something that happened at our eighth maturity assembly.

Word eventually got out in about fifth grade that I didn't have a mother, of course; so all of the girls in my grade knew that I didn't have a mom. Well, in eighth grade, we had this maturity assembly about periods, how our bodies were changing, adjusting to high school next year, dealing with sexual pressures and all that bullcrap. Our mothers were supposed to bring us to the assembly because some of the pictures and stories they were telling to us were a little inappropriate and we needed an adult there, otherwise we couldn't attend the assembly. Of course Miss Kelly came to the assembly with me. During the condom-on-a-banana part, Miss Kelly went to the restroom and while she was gone, this woman asked me who I brought with me. I told her, in all seriousness, that I brought my mother. Now, at that point, I really believed that she was my mother. Not literally, but I really felt in my heart that she was my mother.

After I told the lady that Miss Kelly was my mother, she just laughed and asked me if I was adopted. I told her I wasn't adopted, that she was just my mother, and she laughed at me even more. She basically told me that I could never be Miss Kelly's daughter because she's black and I'm white. It never occurred to me until then that yeah, Shane's family is black and I'm as white as they come. It was just never pointed out to me in obvious ways like that. I was far from a stupid child, and growing up I obviously knew that they were black and I was white. But it never… occurred to me that it was that big of a situation. My gram never taught me the difference between "blacks" and "whites." She taught me that everybody is the same. The most I had heard about races up until that point was the stuff they taught us during black history month in school.

I really couldn't believe that this grown woman had the nerve to tell me that because Shane's mom is a black woman and I'm a white little girl, she could never be my mother. It honestly bothered me, and that's why I stopped calling her my mom. I mean, if it was obvious to this random woman at the assembly that I was calling a black woman my mom, it was probably obvious to everyone. So I just stopped. I never told Miss Kelly that, and I probably never will tell her that. I just don't want to hurt her feelings the way mine were hurt by that comment.

Finally, I get up off the toilet and open up the bathroom door once again. I feel a lot better.

* * *

"Kelly told me you had a little bit of an outburst when you came home from school today. Do you need me to call and see if they'll take your dosage up a little bit?"

"No. It was just one little slip up. I'm okay."

"That's your second one this week though. You know how quickly things escalate with you. If you need a med-check just let me know. I can call it in right now while I'm just lying here."

"Grammy, I said I'm fine. I just got a little bit worked up, that's all. My meds are fine."

"Okay. I'll be out of here by tomorrow. They said they'll let me out around noon if the next round of tests come back okay."

"Are you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Joey. I went to the emergency center and they sent me here to get me some tests done. The first wave of tests came back just fine and they're gonna test me again tomorrow before they let me outta here. I'll be home tomorrow. It was just heartburn after all. I just wanted to be sure it wasn't something serious."

"Is that why you didn't pack me anything? You weren't expecting to go to the hospital, were you?"

"No, I wasn't. I was expecting to be home by the time you got home from school today, but the tests ran long. They're just keeping me for observation. I told you that I'm fine, baby. They're about to bring dinner my way, after I eat I'll watch the news then I'm taking my tired behind to bed. I'm coming home tomorrow. Kelly said that she has everything you'll need while you're there, though. As much time as you spend with them, I expected her to have some of your things."

"Yeah. I have an old toothbrush here, a pair of pajamas and an old outfit to wear to school tomorrow. I never left any underwear here, so Miss Kelly's washing the pair I had on for me."

"Good. What's she feeding you for dinner tonight?"

"Leftover potato casserole from yesterday. I already ate after me and Shane did our homework."

"That didn't have any milk in it, did it? Your allergy pills are at the house."

"She made a half of it without cheese for me. It was just red potatoes, bacon, onions, butter and chicken pieces. My half didn't have cheese on it."

"Okay. Well the dinner cart's coming around now so I've gotta go. Sleep well tonight, honey. I love you."

"I love you too grammy…"

"Josephine, are you crying?"

"…Yes. I just wish you were here…"

"Joey, I told you that I'm okay. Sweetheart, please believe me. I'm FINE. They're letting me out of here tomorrow. The only reason they're keeping me is because they want to test me again tomorrow. I'm okay. I'll come home tomorrow. I'll be there when you get home from school. Don't cry, okay? I'm alright. I'll be home."

"…Grammy, I came home and found out you weren't gonna be home tonight because you're in the hospital. What else am I supposed to think?"

"I know, I know. But I'm going to be alright. I'm gonna be fine."

"Okay. I love you."

"I love you too. I love you to the moon and back. I'll be home tomorrow. Sleep well tonight. No more crying."

"…Okay."

"Alright. Bye now."

"Bye."

I hang up my phone and use my fluffy white towel to wipe the tears off my face. I'm glad that Shane's mom didn't tell me about my gram being in the hospital while I was on a rampage this afternoon. I would have definitely freaked out more than I did if she dropped that on me while I was already pissed. She ended up telling me at dinner. Obviously I cried, but talking to grammy on the phone just now really helped me out. I just don't know what I'd do if I ever lost her. She's been all I've had since I was a baby. I don't have anyone else if I lose her, that's why I was freaking out a little. I feel better after talking to her though. I feel a lot better.

I stand up off of Shane's bed and start rubbing my body dry with my towel. Shane let me shower first because he likes to use up all the hot water while he's in there. When I'm completely dry, I grab the pair of pajama pants Miss Kelly dug out from the bag of many things I left over here. I'm not particularly comfortable with the fact that I have to walk around with no underwear on, but mine are still in the dryer. I pull on one of Shane's old t-shirts that he lent me to sleep in and let my hair down. Just because I have nothing else better to do, I pick up Shane's phone and unlock it. I wonder what him and Leah text each other about, if they text each other at all.

**Shane: **I'll call u when I get out the shower

**Leah: **U still didn't get in the shower? Lol ur such a slacker!

**Shane: **I let Jo get in b4 me.

**Leah: **Wilson?

**Shane: **Yea. something happened n shes staying at my house 2nite.

**Leah: **Oh so u guys r as close as she said

**Shane: **Yea. jo is my lil sis.

**Leah: **that's cute lol so go get in the shower! i want 2 talk 2 u already!

**Shane: **Ok brb

The two of them are actually kind of cute. I knew they'd get along pretty well. _At least I did something right._

* * *

**Wed, Oct 15, 2013**

**9:21 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **so I thought about what you said at lunch today…

**Alex: **about what? we talked about a lot at lunch.

**Me: **about needing to hang out outside of school bc the only time we see each other is at lunch

**Alex: **oh yeah. i wish i didn't have football all the time

**Me: **yeah me too. april and meredith invited me to come to the game on fri. will i get to see you play?

**Alex: **yeah i'll play but u prob. don't want to come to the game with april and mer.

**Me: **why?

**Alex: **bc mer's bf comes to support his sister in the band but they end up just hanging out a lot n april doesn't know much about football she just comes to watch avery. n cristina and her bf will prob. be there too

**Me: **well i was gonna come anyway to see my friend play. but i can sit with april and watch you play while she watches jackson lol

**Alex: **don't be all mushey n put my number on ur cheek. april does that and its so corny. plus at the pep rally in school on friday she always cheers the loudest for jackson

**Me: **well he is her boyfriend so i expect that. btw, where does meredith and cristina's boyfriends go to school? they don't go to garfield do they?

**Alex: **they graduated last year. derek n owen both go to university of washington.

**Me: **oh. do you know what college you want to go to?

**Alex: **nah not yet. think im gonna get a scholarship for wrestling though

**Me: **okay that's cool. so about the pep rally and the game on friday….

**Alex: **what about them?

**Me: **do i just sit there and say go alex? lmao bc if april is cheering for jackson do you just want me to sit there?

**Alex: **youll figure it out i guess. what are u wearing to school on fri.?

**Me: **uhh… i don't even know. prob. a bulldogs t-shirt or something like that to show school spirit

**Alex: **just wear a jacket n a tank top

**Me: **a jacket and a tank top? can i ask why?

**Alex: **no just do it

**Me: **uh… okay? can you give me a hint or whatever?

**Alex: **don't worry about it just do it.

**Me: **that's just a little bit weird though.

**Alex: **what do u have against surprises? geez its like you don't want to be surprised

**Me: **i actually hate surprises. -_-

**Alex: **ur so hard to talk to sometimes

**Me: **can i ask why again?

**Alex: **bc your just so stubborn

**Me: **what does that make you?

**Alex: **im stubborn too but ur just ugh

**Me: **well if i'm so ugh, why are you still talkin to me?

**Alex: **bc

**Me: **bc why?

**Alex: **bc its cuter on u than it is on me.

**Alex: **its getting late though. i'll see you tomorrow. wait by your locker when the lunch bell rings tomorrow

**Me: **okay. goodnight?

**Alex: **goodnight.

**Alex: **oh n before i forget…

**Alex: **u do matter i guess

**Me: **?

**Alex: **u told me u don't matter on facebook when we were talking.

**Alex: **u do matter i guess

**Me: **you guess?

**Alex: **ur pushing it jo

**Me: **okay goodnight!

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so I know the story seems to be dragging a little bit. I promise that DRAMA is coming very, very soon! (within the next two chapters) I know all the boring details about Jo's life for ten chapters straight probably seems a little bit tedious, but I swear there is a PURPOSE I'm spending so much time describing things like this. I plan on making this story about 35-40 chapters or so, so I'm dragging out a little because I have a lot of spaces to fill. It's just very necessary for me to explain, in depth, about Jo's life, her personality, her anger issues, etc. You'll understand why I'm doing all this VERY soon.

Also, more characters will be introduced in upcoming chapters as well. As you can probably guess, Derek and Owen will be coming in the next couple chapters, but more importantly, a few more characters will be here in about 5 or so chapters. I'm still not entirely sure if the whole story will be narrated by Jo, but so far I think it will be. I do have another character I'm thinking about including in the Point of View, but he (or she) is a surprise that I won't reveal until her (or his) character is introduced.

So yeah, thanks for sticking with the boringness so far. I promise I'm kicking it up VERY soon.

thanks for reading, and if you have any questions, comments or whatever for me, PM me :) I'm a pretty nice person and I'll answer your PM. Thanks again! :)

-flawlesspeasant


	9. Too Many Questions

I feel like I'm a sponge and somebody soaked me up with warm water and squeezed all the excess water out of me. That's probably a melodramatic description but that's literally the only way I can describe how I'm feeling. I don't have much energy and the little bit I woke up this morning with is just gone. I'm just drained, pretty much. As usual, I didn't get a wink of sleep last night in Shane's bed. First, he kept pulling all the covers off me and kicking me in the ass while he was sleeping. Then, as soon as I finally got comfortable enough to try and rest, it was time to wake up from school. I feel like I can just fall apart right now and I imagine my clothes mirror how I feel. I had a pair of jeans and a lace blouse out to wear this morning but I just didn't have it in me and I really hope Alex understands today. Instead of my original outfit, I have a pair of Shane's grey sweatpants on with the Nike logo across the butt and one of my old soccer t-shirts. The soccer shirt used to fit me when I was like nine, so needless to say it's a little small on me but I don't care. It comes up a little around my waist so my hips and lower stomach are out but I promise that I just don't care.

With what little strength I can muster up inside of me, I carry my geography book and binder into the classroom and take my seat at the front of the room. Lately I've been sitting in the back with Heather, Leah and Steph but I just don't feel like walking back there. They know what they're doing on the project and if they need me they can just come to me. I slouch down in my seat and but my head down on the desk. My hair falls messily down around my face and arms and at this point, I just want to cry. In my tiredness this morning, I forgot to grab a ponytail holder so I'm stuck with ten pounds of hair in my face all day. I'm about ten seconds away from crying. I'm seriously debating on taking a pair of scissors to my hair at this point.

"Jo, are you coming back here?" Steph calls out to me from the back of the room. I keep my head down and just shake it. "Do you want us to come to you?" I shake my head again. "Are you okay?" Once again, I give her a shake. As long as I've been in school, I've only fallen asleep once. I fell asleep during quiet time in kindergarten and haven't fallen asleep in school since. I'm half-tempted to just go to sleep right now. Exhausted doesn't even describe me at this moment. Beside me, I hear the scuffle and clanking of desks and chairs being moved. _Please just leave me alone. I'm literally begging. _Someone gives me a sharp, hard poke with a bony finger on my shoulder blade. "Are you dead?" Steph's voice is dead in my ear now. _No, but I wish I were. Didn't I tell you guys not to come up here and bother me?_

I sluggishly pick up my head and just look at the three of them. Heather touches the part of the desk I was lying on to see if I was drooling, I assume. "Who ran you over with a pickup truck?" I just squint at her instead of talking, which speaks volumes. "Sorry. Rough morning?"

"Rough night." I mumble, clasping my hands over my face and pushing my hair back. "I slept with Shane last night and got kicked in the ass the whole time. I just need a minute."

"You did WHAT with Shane?" Leah's eyes widen and her face gets instantly red.

"Ew, ew Leah. No. Not… not like that. I slept in his bed, I mean. And he kept kicking me in the ass the whole night so I didn't even sleep much. I'm just so tired…" I stifle a large yawn and hold my face in my hands.

"…Can I ask why you didn't just sleep in your own bed for all that?" Steph sweeps a piece of my hair away from my hands and lovingly pats my back.

"…My grandmother spent the night in the hospital so I had to stay with his family last night. I just really need to go to sleep. I'm not even sure how I'm functioning right now to be honest."

Heather puts her hand on the back of my head and pushes it down to the desk. "Well we just need to discuss the plan for tonight. We're still coming over your house to bake the Biscotti for tomorrow, right?"

"…Fuck." I purposely bang my head against the desk out of frustration. "I completely forgot…"

"Jo, it's fine. We can always just go to the bakery and buy two packs of Biscotti. It's the little cookies in the showcase that look like cut slices of bread or whatever. My mom buys them all the time. We don't have to bake them." Leah rubs the spot on my head she thinks I smacked off the desk. "Don't beat yourself up about it… literally."

"I'm sorry guys. I'm seriously out of it today. I'm tired and my mind hasn't been all the way here with this stuff with my gram and all… I'm so sorry." I yawn once again. _Oh shit, is that my breath smelling like that? I knew not brushing my teeth this morning was a bad idea but I thought I could get away with it at least until lunch. _"…Do any of you guys have a stick of gum? Mint gum?" I whine.

"I only have Double Bubble…" Heather grabs her purse from the desk behind her. "You still want it?"

"…No. My breath smells and bubble gum will probably just make it worse. I need minty gum."

"Didn't you brush your teeth this morning?"

"…I was tired! I'm lucky I put on deodorant…"

Steph and Leah both bust out in laughter at the same time. Steph pushes my head down on the desk again. "Okay honey…" She switches the tone in her voice to a joking, loving, motherly voice. "It's bed time for you. Lie down… go 'head. We'll wake you up when the bell rings. Go night night, Jojo. Night night…"

"…Shut up." I just glare at her. "I'm not gonna go to sleep because I'm not comfortable. I won't be able to sleep until I get home in my own bed. I have to be comfortable to fall asleep, that's why I couldn't fall asleep in Shane's bed last night. I wasn't comfortable… plus Shane kept kicking me in the butt."

"What do you mean he kept kicking you in the butt?" Leah questions me. _Oh, I forgot. She has to know every little thing Shane does. _"Like literally kicking you in your butt? Or are you being sarcastic?"

"I'm being serious. He sleeps at the top of the bed and I sleep at the bottom. His foot kept going in my butt last night. And he kept pulling the covers." I sigh. "I don't usually care if he pulls the covers because it's usually hot in his room but his mom turned on the air conditioning yesterday and it was freezing! And Shane knows how I am. He knows that I can't sleep in pants or socks and he kept pulling covers and I was so cold. I hate sleeping at his house on school nights. I was seriously about to get on the floor but his dog was sleeping on the floor."

"You sleep in his bed with no pants on?!" This time, Steph seems to be the surprised one. "Seriously?!"

I roll my eyes at her comments. "Okay, I'm gonna explain this to the three of you just this once, and then we will NEVER talk about this again. Get it?" I try hard to mask the fact that I'm beginning to get irritated with their constant assumptions and astonishment about things when it comes to me and Shane but I don't think I can. It's starting to really piss me off because I know what they're implying when they say these things. "Shane Anthony Ross is my BROTHER. Literally, my brother. I… I clip his toenails because he doesn't know how to! When I had the chicken pox, he was the one that scratched my back for me. I think he is the most disgusting human being on this planet and he thinks the same about me. For god's sake, we used to have farting and burping competitions! I'm not attracted to him in the slightest way and he's not attracted to me. I've known him since I was three. We used to…" I tune my nose up at what I'm about to say, but I really feel like it's necessary for them to know how brother/sister me and Shane's relationship really is. "When we toddlers, we used to share the toilet. He used to sit on one side and I'd sit on the other when we had to use the bathroom, because we were both too little and we didn't want each other to fall in. It's never been like that with me and Shane. So yeah, I sleep in the bed with him in my underwear and he sleeps in his boxers. It's not weird… it's… it's normal to us."

"…That's sick. You guys would poop together?" Leah looks playfully disgusted by that.

"…Yeah. Thinking back about it, it was disgusting. But that's the shit we used to do together. His mom would spank him and I would cry and vice-versa. It's never been like that with me and Shane. I never even thought about him like that. Ever."

"That's sick… in a cute way." She shakes her head at me. "..But what'd you say his middle name was? He dead-ass won't tell me! I asked him on the phone last night and he really wouldn't tell me. What's his middle name?"

"Anthony. It's really Anthony-James, but we just use Anthony. He was named after his dad. His dad's name was Anthony James Ross but his dad didn't want him to be a jr. so they just hyphenated his middle name instead. It's Anthony-James and he hates it. If you wanna piss him off, call him Anthony-James. He doesn't get so mad if you just use Anthony though." Shane will probably have an attitude with me later for telling Leah his middle name but I honestly don't care. He's done a lot of things that have pissed me off within the last week.

"Anthony-James…" Leah whispers to herself. I can tell that I just gave her the most vital piece of information ever. _Whatever floats her boat, though?_

"What's your middle name, Jo? Is it like… Anne? So you're like a Jo Anne? Get it?" Steph tries to make a joke but I don't find it funny. Joanne is almost as bad as Josephine.

"…You can't laugh at me for it." I can't even look her in her eye. "Just remember that my grandma named me. I was named by an old person."

"Jo's not exactly an old person name though. I mean, Jo's not bad…"

"That's not my full name though."

"It's not? But that's even the name that's in the yearbook for you… it's really not?"

"Nope. Grab my elementary yearbooks and that's a totally different story. The school knows that Jo's not my full name but it's what they use because that's how I sign all of my school papers and documents and stuff. I don't know… it's weird." I shrug.

"Well are you gonna tell us your middle name or not?" Heather suddenly seems very interested in what I have to say and so does Leah. "Just tell us your full name. From start to finish."

"…My middle name is Gertrude." I can't even say that with a straight face. If they knew me as well as some people know me they'd know when I was lying.

"…Oh my god, no." Leah's jaw just dropped. Steph looks like she just tasted poop and Heather is smiling like she enjoys it or something.

"No, I'm just joking with you guys. It's Leanne. Josephine Leanne."

"JOSEPHINE?!" Steph exclaims.

"Shhh! I don't need the whole grade knowing my name!" I clamp my hand over her mouth. "But yes. It's Josephine. Call me Josephine and I'll rip your voicebox out. I already know how lame it is. I was named by an old person, remember? Josephine and Leanne are both pretty rough, huh?"

"…I don't think Leanne is too bad. That's actually rather acceptable. But _Josephine? _Yikes." Leah giggles. "But my middle name isn't any better. Mine's Elizabeth, boring and plain."

Steph raises her hand. "Can't get any worse than Marie over here."

"Mine's Lynn." Heather squeaks.

"…Yeah, we all have pretty sucky middle names. Stephanie Marie, Leah Elizabeth and Heather Lynn… I'd say we all got pretty screwed."

"Don't forget yourself… Josephine." Heather giggles when she says that and I want to kill her.

I clench my teeth and glare at her. "Shut. It."

* * *

_Just five more periods. Five more periods until you can go home. You're okay. You can make it. _I've been giving myself pep-talks in my head all day and I have to say that it isn't working. I'd like to think that I'm okay and my little talks inside my head are helping me get through, but the truth is that I'm literally drowning. I found myself falling asleep in Spanish class after geography, I tried so hard to keep myself awake last period in study hall and I just couldn't do it. The only good thing that's come from the day so far is the fact that I haven't cried yet. I just don't think I've ever been this tired before. _You can do this for five more periods. You can do it. Just get through lunch, English, chemistry, computer apps, and geometry. You can do this._

I'm too tired to even pick my feet up while I'm walking, so I drag my feet out to my locker to stuff the books I attempted to study from last period into my locker. I toss the books in the top part of the locker and rest my head against it. Alex said to wait here for him before I go to lunch today. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll take a little bit longer to get here. I'll just rest my eyes for two seconds… _I really can do this. I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not tired. You're not tired, Jo. You're okay. _Just as I'm about to open up my eyes, who I assume is Alex taps me on my shoulder. "Jojo!" He shouts. _Wrong. Not Alex, Shane. _

I can't even muster up enough strength to do anything other than just stare at him. "Guess what's for lunch today." _Shut up, Shane. I don't really care what's for lunch. _ Instead of saying that out loud, I just yawn at him. I want to be mad at Shane. He's the reason I'm so tired in the first place. He's the reason I'm hardly functioning right now. If it wasn't for his constant ass-kicking last night, I wouldn't be this exhausted. Plus, I realized just by sitting in a chair all morning that the spot that he kept kicking me in actually hurts. My ass hurts, I'm exhausted, I'm barely functioning and it's his fault. I can't help but yawn again, bigger this time and blowing out more of my own breath. Shane pulls his head back away from me and waves his hand in the air. "Wooo…. Did somebody forget to brush their teeth this morning?"

_Don't you dare do it, Jo. Don't you dare. _I feel my bottom lip slide out from underneath of my top lip, poking out into a pouting position and my jaw starts trembling. _I'm gonna do it. I'm doing it. _I close eyes just as the tears slide out of them and my chest jolts and hiccups with the severity of my sobbing. I can't even describe the noise coming out of mouth right now, but I don't even attempt to shut it up. I just stand there in front of Shane wailing like a toddler that just got told no for the first time. If I had to guess, I'd say my crying moan is a cross between a "ehhhh" and a "mmmm". By this point, I'm sure people are staring at me but I don't really care. I'm crying and I can't stop it. And I know Shane is freaked out by now. I busted out in tears like this in front of him once before and he just walked away.

"Are you serious right now or are you just messing with me?" He asks because I can make myself cry at the drop of a hat if I need to. It's something I learned when I was younger. It worked for me against my gram until I was about five and she realized that I was doing it on purpose. Now she knows when I'm faking and she'll usually swat me in the leg or something if I fake cry to get my way. "Are you being serious?" I don't know why, but the fact that he asked that a second time just makes me feel even worse. My head throws back and I snivel, weeping harder and harder. "Okay, okay!" He pulls me into a hug. "I'm… I'm sorry? I think." He rubs my back. "Your breath doesn't stink… I was just joking."

"I… I…" _Pull yourself together now. Enough is enough. _I sniff and wipe my face with Shane's t-shirt sleeve. "I was… I was too tired to brush my… my teeth this morning, okay?" I sniff again and pull out of the hug we're sharing. Well, not really sharing; he's hugging me and I'm standing still but yeah. "I'm okay. I needed to do that." I clear my throat pretty hard and do one last wipe over my eyes. "I'm so tired… I'm like… falling asleep in every class and I feel like I'm running on fumes. I can't even keep my eyes open…"

"So go home. Your grandma is probably home by now and even if she isn't, my mom could come get you on her lunch break. Why don't you just go home?"

"Because I don't wanna bother anybody to come get me just because I'm sleepy. That's not a good reason to go home early." Behind him, I catch a glimpse of Alex approaching us. I sniff away the remnants of my tears again fix myself. "Are my eyes red?"

"Yeah. You look like you just got done bawling your eyes out." He reaches in his pocket and hands me his pack of travel tissues. "I told you about just busting out in tears like that in front of me. I didn't even say anything to you and you just started crying out of nowhere. Quit doing that." He reaches in the same pocket and hands me a stick of peppermint flavored Extra gum.

I open the gum, pop it in my mouth before Alex gets to me and toss the wrapper on the ground. "It was an accident. I was on the verge of crying all morning and that just did it for me. You could've been nicer about telling me that my breath stinks. Besides, you should've known that I already knew how smelly it was." I suck on the gum in my mouth so the scent will mask my breath. "You can leave now. I'm going to lunch with Alex."

"Well gee, I love you too Jo." He playfully pushes me back by my forehead and leaves quickly, before I even get a chance to hit him back. I roll my eyes and turn to meet Alex who just now made it to me.

"Looks like someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning." Is the first thing he says to me. No "Hey, what's up?" No "How has your day been so far?" None of that. Just the snide comment about how I look. I would make a comeback about how he's dressed today but I don't really have much to say. He looks like he stepped out of the shower and came straight here. His blue jeans are nicely ironed, his white sneakers are really clean and his brown sweater with a dark blue Abercrombie moose on the breast looks nice against his muscular build. I don't have a comeback.

"I totally wasn't in the mood for school this morning…" Instead of trying to match his smart-assedness, I just decide to tell him the truth about why I look like crap. We start walking down the hall to the lunch room and once again, I can just feel the eyes glaring at me. I try not to let it make me too nervous though. "You have no idea what it's like to wake up some mornings and just not feel like squeezing into a pair of tight jeans."

"Is it that time of the month?" He asks so casually, as if he's a girl himself and he's having a girl-to-girl talk with me. He doesn't even make it weird. He just lets the question roll smoothly off his tongue like it's a completely normal thing to ask.

"…Um…" As always, a smile spreads across my face. I'm always so smiley and giddy while I'm with him. I haven't quite figured out how to control my emotions around him just yet. "No, it's not. And even if it was, it's not like I'd just come out and say that to you…" I shudder just thinking about periods. I really don't like period talks. I don't like thinking about lady parts and all the happenings of them. It's just a little… weird, I think. "I just didn't feel like dressing up this morning."

"I'm just saying. I have a sister and a mother; I know how those things work." We finally get into the cafeteria start walking over towards the table we usually sit at.

"Oh so you're just a woman expert, aren't you?" I run my hand through my messily wavy hair and shake it so it falls just the way I want it to. I can't even explain how I'm feeling right now because I honestly don't… know. It's like… I'm wearing baggy sweatpants that are rolled around my waist because they're too long and a t-shirt that is about three sizes too small for me. I'm dressed like a bum but I still want to… act like a girl or something around him. I'm usually cool with looking like a total slob when I'm dressed like one, but I really just want my hair to at least be perfect around him. I can't explain it. It's maddening and pretty weird. "You know just about everything you need to know about women then."

"I actually put that on a college application. I'm a seventeen year old woman expert. You'd be surprised how many colleges are beating down my door just to get me to attend." Hell, even his sarcasm is perfect. I can tell that it's sarcasm and he's speaking fluent bullshit but the way he says it makes me want to believe it's true. _Is there anything he doesn't do perfectly? Isn't there something he's not good at? _"Most of those colleges would kill just to eat lunch with me. And they'd probably dress a little nicer, too. Just saying…"

I suck my teeth at him and sit down in the spot that I've been sitting in for the past four days. "Whatever, jerk. I'd like to see you get up every day, do your makeup, make sure your hair and outfit go together and make it in time to catch the bus. It's not as easy as you probably think it is." _Why am I suddenly not even tired anymore? _"Some days, I'm lucky if I even put on pants. I'd come to school in my pajamas if I could."

"Relax, Malibu Barbie." He sits down next to me and scoots his chair in towards the table. "I'd be more concerned if you came to school dressed like every day is a fashion show."

"You would?"

"Well, yeah. That only means you're uptight and don't know how to let loose. Either that or you're a stuck-up cheerleader brat that thinks everybody wants you. Whichever description you choose is pretty much accurate."

"So… wearing nice clothes every day somehow translates into A., you're a stuck-up cheerleader brat that thinks everybody wants you or B., you're an uptight bitch that doesn't know how to get her nose dirty?" I run my hand through my hair again. "And dressing like a bum somehow means the opposite?"

"Here, I'll show you." He puts his hand against my chin and turns my head towards the middle of the cafeteria. "Right there. That's the cheerleader table." He discreetly points to the largest table in the cafeteria that is strategically placed directly in the middle of everything. "None of them would ever be caught dead wearing what you're wearing. They're all prude, uppity little bitches that think that every boy in the school wants to climb in bed with them when in reality, we all just make fun of them. And they have to dress in such a way that reflects their attitude, otherwise they can't sit at the table. They wouldn't be caught dead in sweats." He turns my head to the second largest table in the cafeteria. "And those are the guys that they think want them. The jocks. The football players, the baseballers, the basketballers. Those girls are nothing more than dirty locker room talk."

"…Is that why they all stare at me when we walk in the cafeteria together? Is it because I'm breaking their code or whatever?"

"Who, the jocks? No, they stare at you because you have a big ass." He laughs softly and I just look at him for the longest time. I can't figure out if he's serious or if he's joking. _I don't really think my butt is that big… it's actually pretty…small. _Should I tell him that I meant the cheerleaders, not the jocks? Before I can even make a decision, he opens his mouth again. "Secretly, they all want one of you." I squint my eyes at him like he's Shane and he'll be able to understand what my facial expressions mean. "They're supposed to be super attracted to the cheerleaders. Jocks are supposed to date cheerleaders so they spend most of their time convincing each other that they're into members of the cheer squad when in reality, they all want one of you. The girls that dress in what they're comfortable in, keep their heads down and don't act like they're the hottest things in the school, even though they are. Jocks secretly like the Mers, the Cristinas, the Apes, the Yous. It's a known fact."

"Oh, it's a known fact?"

He nods like he knows he just said something groundbreaking to me. "Why do you think Jackson's with Ape? Nobody wants a girl that walks around every Friday in uniforms that show off their butts. They're more attracted to the girls with self-respect."

"So is that why you're my friend?"

He nods his head again. "…Well that, and you have a big ass."

I instinctively slap him on his arm. "You're such a jerk!" My everlasting smile is still going strong and even more so now, it won't go away. I really ought to learn how to control my smiling and giddiness around him. But I don't really think I want to control it. "…So don't think I forgot. I still wanna know why you want me to wear a tank top and a jacket to school tomorrow."

"Oh my goodness. Use your imagination, okay?" He slouches down in his chair and blindly fixes a curl at the top of his head. "You refuse to let me surprise you."

"…I told you last night that I hate surprises." I reach up and brush his hair forward, which kind of makes him flinch a little. The curl he attempted to fix didn't lie down the first time he tried so I just fixed it for him. That's all. "You don't think that's just a little bit cruel? You're making me wait until lunch TOMORROW to find out why you wanted me to wear a tank top and a jacket. Plus, that's not really showing school spirit. There's a pep rally tomorrow and you're asking me to wear a tank and a jacket. That's doesn't scream Go Bulldogs! to me."

"Don't worry about that. You'll be showing your school spirit tomorrow no matter what. And I'm not gonna make you wait until lunch to find out. I'll tell you why tomorrow in breakfast."

"Can I at least have a hint?!" Underneath the table, I cross my legs and lean forward. I hadn't even noticed that Jackson, April, Cristina and Meredith have all sat down and began eating their lunches. I must really be lost in the conversation Alex and I are having. "You can't just tell me to wear something you want me to wear without telling me why."

He sighs hard. "You're a bug-a-boo."

"Am I bugging you?" I say with mock sarcasm. I know I'm bugging him but I don't really care. I need to find out why he wants me to wear something as basic as a tank top and a jacket. I mean, should I wear jeans at all? Should I go home and straighten my hair? Should I even worry about wearing makeup tomorrow? And my shoes? "Do you just want me to dress like a bum again tomorrow? If that's the case, then just say so."

He sighs again. "Just wear a white tank top, if you have one. If you don't have white, black will do. I don't care what color jacket you wear, if you even wear a jacket at all. Just make sure you have the tank top at least." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "You know what? You can even wear a long sleeved shirt if you want to. You can wear a long sleeved white shirt, a long sleeved black shirt. Or don't wear a shirt at all. I don't care. Just… don't dress in something you care about people seeing." He throws his hands up. "That's all you're getting out of me."

"…Okay, and my shoes? What about my makeup? How should I do my hair?"

He throws his head back. "I have something for you to wear tomorrow, okay?! I'm going to bring it to school. I didn't want you to dress all nice and be mad at me if I asked you to go in the bathroom and change out of your pretty clothes. Alright? Are you satisfied now?"

"…But why a tank top and a jacket? Any specific reason?" _So am I just supposed to trust him when he says something like that? For all I know, he can have something that'll spell ridiculous for me to wear tomorrow. And at the pep rallies, the football players like to host little things like pie-in-the-face contests, dunk tanks and hot dog eating competitions. They usually pick members from the audience to compete. Is he thinking about dragging you out there? Oh hell no, I'm not doing any of that. _"I kinda need to know what you have planned, you know…"

"You're driving me up a tree." He closes his eyes and doesn't open them for a very long time. "My away jersey, okay? All the players are wearing our white jerseys to school tomorrow… our home jerseys, because the game is home tomorrow. My away jersey is purple. So just dress to wear purple tomorrow."

_He wants me to wear his jersey? But… but like… that's not for me. _I mean, girls do that all the time. But usually when girls wear a boy's jersey, the boy is her boyfriend. It's sort of a tradition at school, it happens every Friday. The football players wear their jerseys to school and their girlfriends wear whichever jersey isn't being worn for that week. I always thought it was kind of cute how the boyfriends and girlfriends matched for the day. My smile just widens. _Stop smiling so much, he's gonna think you're stupid. _"So um… I should probably do my makeup in a shade of purple."

He squints at me like he wants to bite my head off. "…And it's a large, so bring something to tie it up so it'll fit you better." He just starts slowly shaking his head at me. "Don't think too much into it, either."

"…But people are gonna think we're a couple if I wear your jersey." I mumble. I really only meant for myself to hear that but I said it loud enough for him to hear too.

"So what?"

"…But we're not a couple…." I look up at him. "Are we?"

"You ask way too many questions, Wilson."


	10. Trust In Me

"So do you feel better now? After crying and stuff?" Shane grabs my laptop and pounces down on my bed with it. I feel beyond better, actually. I took a shower when I got home from school, grammy had dinner waiting for me so I ate since I didn't eat lunch and I took a nice three hour nap. The nap isn't what made me feel better though. I'm still riding out my Alex-high from lunch today. I've spent the better half of my time since I woke up just daydreaming about what I'm gonna look like in that jersey tomorrow. I'm smitten, if that's even the word. I can't even think straight. "Because I have some stuff I gotta talk to you about."

"I'm fine, butthead. Spill your guts." I grab the very last chunk of my hair left to straighten and drag my flat iron across it. It's a shame how much longer my hair is when it's straight as opposed to when it's wavy and curly. I just wish it wasn't so thick that it takes me an hour and a half to straighten it. Sometimes it takes me longer than that if I take breaks in between. I already have my outfit planned out in my head. Since Alex said he likes it when I dress bummy, I'm not gonna be too glammed up tomorrow. I'm gonna put my hair in a ponytail, I'm gonna put little bit of makeup on, I'm gonna wear my glasses and I'll wear a pair of skinny jeans and my brown Uggs, since it's supposed to be chilly tomorrow. I'm in a freakishly amazing mood.

"…So I'm thinking about asking Leah to put my number on her cheek tomorrow. But I'm not sure if it's a good idea since we're not all that serious yet." All I hear is the rapid click-clack typing of my keyboard. He's probably on Facebook or something. "I'm not ready for us to take it to the whole boyfriend/girlfriend level, but I kinda want to do something that shows that she's not exactly… single, you know?" He keeps typing something. "Good idea or bad idea?"

"…Good idea. Putting your number on her cheek is subtle but it makes a statement. It's bold but not too bold." I unplug my straightener and roll the cord up so I can stuff it back in my drawer. "It's not wear-your-jersey bold but it's a statement that she's not in the market anymore. Good idea. Plus you already made her your woman crush Wednesday on Instagram so it's pretty obvious that you two are a thing." I drag my comb through my hair to make sure it's all silky and straight. "I'm wearing Alex's jersey tomorrow."

"Yeah, but what if she says no to it? Then I'm looking like a—WAIT WHAT?!" I knew it would take a minute to register what I just said. Yeah, that's the kind of reaction I was thinking I'd get. "You're wearing WHO'S jersey tomorrow?"

"Alex's." I look at myself in the mirror and see that my cheeks are bright red. I'm blushing. "He told me not to make a big deal about it, so I'm not making a big deal about it. But he told me to wear a tank top tomorrow and he's gonna give me his jersey tomorrow morning in breakfast. So… yeah." My smile just shines through again. I get so smiley when I'm talking about this boy, lord help me. "I'm totally freaking out though Shane!"

"…Wow." He closes my laptop and sits up on my bed. "I didn't know he liked you all like that. Geez… that's… that's crazy. You're wearing his jersey, Jo!"

"I know! I totally know!" I stand up from the chair in front of my vanity and jump down next to him on my bed. "It's all I've been thinking about since he told me! Like… people are gonnna see me wearing it tomorrow and they're just gonna… know. I'm totally freaking out!" I flop back and lie flat on my bed. "I kinda caught the drift that he liked me more than he'd admit. Like… the way his friends talk in circles around me at the lunch table. It's like he talks to them about me more than he'll let me know. It's like they know how he feels about me, but he won't tell me exactly." I grab my pillow and put it over my face. "…And he looks at me, Shane. He like… really thinks I'm hot. I didn't…" I pull the pillow away from my face. "I thought we were just going off personality here, but NO. He thinks I'm hot."

"Why is it so hard for you to believe that a boy likes you? I keep telling you that you're gorgeous, Jo. It's like you don't believe it when it comes outta my mouth." He scratches his head. "…I mean, you're no Leah, but you're pretty cute."

"Shut up you reject." I throw my pillow at him. "Shane, I really don't know… I don't know how I'm feeling right now. It's a good feeling, but I don't know how I'm feeling…" I stare up at my ceiling and sigh dreamily. "I don't even know what I'm feeling right now."

"…Try to explain it. I'll try to understand if you try to explain it."

"…I…" I just keep staring up at my ceiling. "I feel like… like I can't stop smiling." I look away from my ceiling and at him. "Like my heart is gonna burst into millions of tiny pieces and I'm gonna throw up. And my head hurts, but not in a bad way. Like… like I can dance to 70s, 80s and 90s music all day and not feel like an idiot. Like I just wanna dance around in my underwear and sing into my hairbrush. I don't know…" I sigh again. "Isn't that stupid?"

"…No. Cause Leah makes me feel the same way when I think about her." He lies down next to me. "Not dance around and sing into my hairbrush kinda feeling, but pretty darn similar." He stares up at my ceiling too. I can tell that we're both just watching my ceiling fan go around and around in circles. "I have so much energy when I think about her." We both just lie here in silence for a few moments. The only sound between the two of us is the sound of the air whizzing by and by from my ceiling fan. I close my eyes and just let myself be at peace for a little while. I have that feeling that this is as good as it gets. I don't ever want this feeling to go away. Breaking the steady silence, Shane springs up off my bed and goes over to my dresser. "Come on, Jo. Get up."

I sit up but I don't get off my bed. "…Where are we going?"

He grabs my iPod off the charger and docks it on my iHome. He kneels in front of it so he can see the screen. "We're not going anywhere." He opens up the Pandora app on my iPod and turns my iHome on. "Just get up." He walks over to my door and shuts it. "Come on, get up. Get up!" He grabs me by my ankles and pulls me.

"Okay, okay! I'm up!" I stand up in the middle of my bedroom and just look around. I know what he's planning on doing but I just don't think I can. I can't do this in front of Shane. It was fine when we were babies but now it's just weird. I'll feel like a total idiot if I do this in front of Shane. "Shane, I'm not doing this."

"Yes you are. If I'm doing it, you're doing it." He turns on the exact Pandora station I knew he would turn on and it just comes on loud and very clear. "Come on, J. Just like when we were little…. Come on."

_I saw him standing there by the record machine. I knew he must've been about seventeen. _

I can't help but smile at this song. This used to be our favorite song to dance to. Shane's mom and my grandmother both used to make us listen to hardcore 80s music and we used to entertain ourselves by making up our own music videos to the songs. We were so lame. I can't believe he's really gonna make me do this. I just stand there like an idiot while Shane starts literally screaming the lyrics. He's gonna think I don't remember them but I do. I just don't want to do this right now. "The beat was going strong, playing my favorite song. And I could tell it wouldn't be long until he was with me, yeah me..." He stops singing for a little bit. "…Come on, Jo. Come on. Just like we're little kids…"

I bite my bottom lip and just close my eyes. _You know you want to…. just do it. _"Singin' I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL. So put another dime in the jukebox baby. I LOVE ROCK AND ROLL. So come and take your time and dance with me!" I find myself jumping around like a lunatic and Shane's doing the same. I can hardly stop laughing long enough to sing with him. Shane starts doing the monkey dance and I just join in with him. _Why am I having so much fun?_

_He smiled so I got up and asked for his name. But that don't matter, he said 'cause it's all the same. _

"This is the part where you would do the air guitar, remember?" I double myself over, holding my stomach and just laugh. "…I can't believe you're doing this to me."

"Say it doesn't feel good though. It feels good to get all this energy out, doesn't it? You said it yourself that Alex makes you wanna dance around to 80s music…"

"…Not literally!" I sweep my hair out of my face. I sit down on my bed to take a breather. "…I miss when we used to do this. We used to spend hours doing this until we passed out and took a nap." I sigh and just think about how much simpler things were when we were babies and doing things like this. It's so surreal to think about how little we were when we were doing this. If we didn't know the music video to the song we were listening to, we'd just do what we thought the music video should be. _Ooh baby do you know what that's worth? Ooh heaven is a place on Earth. They say in heaven, love comes first. We'll make heaven a place on Earth. Ooh heaven is a place on Earth. _I crack a smile at what I'm singing in my head. I tried to carry Shane around like a baby for our makeshift "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" music video. We were such little idiots.

Shane turns the music down on my iHome low, but not too low to the point that we can't hear it. "…Jo?"

"Hmm?" I comb my fingers through my hair so the little bit of sweating I just did doesn't make it turn instantly wavy.

"I need you to do me a favor. And you have to do it now, before I overthink it and do something to screw up."

"…Um, okay. But if it involves me going downstairs I'm not going."

"You don't have to go downstairs. You don't even have to move. You just gotta promise me you won't get mad at me. And you have to promise that you won't tell anyone." He looks a little bit messed up. I hope he's okay. I can usually read through what Shane's faces mean but I'm not sure what this expression says. I don't know. "I… I have to do this. Just promise me that you'll understand."

"Oookay. I promise I won't get mad at you, I promise I won't tell anyone and I promise I'll understand this favor that I have to do for you." I just look at him. "Okay now tell me. What do you need me to do?" I'm starting to get a little worried about him. I swear we were just having a lot of fun together and now he seems totally freaked out.

"Just close your eyes, okay? Don't open them until I say open them."

"…Fine." I close my eyes and heave out a heavy sigh. _Okay, if he's getting naked, I can handle that. I've seen Shane naked before. I mean, it was just a buttcheek or two recently but… I mean… how much could he have really changed since we were babies? Okay, he's like my brother. He's my brother… If he gets naked, it's okay. He's your brother… _Before my mind can run any further with the thought of Shane being naked in front of me, I feel something warm, soft and kind of wet touch my lips. _OH MY GOD IF THAT'S HIS… _I know he told me not to, but my eyes inadvertently snap open. What the HELL is he doing?!

I close my eyes just as quick as I opened them and just sit here, on my bed, about to puke. _What is he _Before I can even finish that thought, his tongue makes its way into my mouth. I've kissed boys before and I KNOW what to do when a boy puts his tongue in my mouth, so naturally my tongue massages his back but only for like three seconds. In the split second before I pull away, one of his hands tangles in my hair and the other touches my back. Okay, this is disgusting. I put my hands firmly against his chest and push him away. "Sh…" I push him HARD. "Shane!" I know I promised him I wouldn't be mad but… but… "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!"

"Relax, Jo. It wasn't like that…" He rolls his eyes and steps away from me. He'd better take a few more steps back.

"WASN'T LIKE WHAT?! BECAUSE IT KINDA SEEMS LIKE YOU JUST KISSED ME!"

"It wasn't a real kiss…"

_Calm down… Calm down. Do NOT blow up on Shane. Don't do it… don't hurt him. Calm down, Jo… Calm down. Don't… You're gonna hurt him. _"WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU MEAN IT WASN'T A REAL KISS? IT FE…IT FELT PRETTY REAL! IT SURE AS HELL WASN'T FAKE!" I stand up from my bed and put my hands around his neck. "WHAT KIND OF SHIT DID YOU JUST PULL ON ME? YOU MAKE ME PROMISE NOT TO BE MAD AT YOU THEN YOU PULL THAT? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND?" _You're choking him, Jo… You're choking him. _My hands squeeze so tightly around his throat that I'm SURE he can't breathe. "YOU COULD'VE FUCKING… I….YOUR TONGUE!" _Jo, get OFF him. _

I take my hands away from his neck and just… shake. I close my eyes and take a couple deep breaths. I don't know what he looks like right now and frankly I don't give a damn. I know I was literally on the verge of killing him though, because he's coughing pretty hard from what I can hear. Oh god I didn't mean to hurt him that bad. "Go away, Shane. Seriously, just go away." I keep my eyes closed while I talk to him. I just can't even look at him. I can barely even talk to him.

"Jo, let me explain… it's not what you think." His voice is hoarse which tells me that I choked him up pretty bad. _I never wanted to hurt him. I really gotta start controlling this. I really didn't mean to hurt him. _"It's really not like that."

"Go. Away. Shane." I keep my back turned to him with my eyes closed. _What if you hadn't stopped yourself? You could have really hurt him. You could have seriously killed your best friend. What is wrong with you? _I purse my lips into a hard line and let a couple tears seep out of my closed eyes.

"You promised you wouldn't get mad." I hear his footsteps nearing me. "Just listen to me, okay? Give me five seconds." He boldly puts his hand on my shoulder. Shane, of all people, knows how I am when I'm angry. He's… he's brave, touching me. _It's okay. It's okay. Stay calm… you don't want to hurt him. You don't want to hurt him, Jo… _"I just needed to do that, to make myself sure. Okay? I swear it wasn't like that. I won't even mention it after this." He sounds like he might be crying but I'm not entirely sure if he is or isn't. "When you said you always smile when you think about Alex, I… I thought about you. I thought about how I smile a lot when I'm talking to you and I just thought for a SECOND that I might… Please don't be mad. I just had to do that. I had to make sure I was sure about Leah. I thought if I did that… just once that I'd shut up all the questions in my head."

_So now he's gonna pull another load of bullshit on me? Maybe I'm still just downright livid, but it sounded like he just admitted that he had a crush on me. What the hell, man. I don't need this form Shane. I don't need this. I need my best friend to STAY my best friend. No, Shane. You can't like me. _"You said you never thought of me like that! You lied to me."

"No, Jo! It wasn't a lie!" With the tone of the way he said that, I can tell that he's surely crying. "You can't be mad at me because it wasn't like that. I never lied to you. I don't think of you like that and I never have. I did… for a SECOND like five minutes ago and I had to make sure the thought wasn't serious… you get it?" He sighs. "Please just don't get mad at me. You're my best friend… and… doing that just made me realize that we'll never be anything more than best friends. You gotta believe me."

"I don't want to talk about it anymore, Shane. You… we…" I finally turn around and face him. His face reads embarrassment and sorrow which is making it just a tad bit easier for me to sympathize with him. His face and the fact that I almost strangled him to death are the only things keeping me sane right now. "Let's never talk about it again. EVER. And… don't do that anymore. That was just…wrong."

"I'm sorry, okay? I knew you'd think I was weird for it, and I know you probably don't understand why I did it. Just know that it meant nothing and I had to do it."

"No, I still don't understand why you did it and I probably never will, so let's just drop it."

"Are you really gonna sit here and tell me that you NEVER thought about me like that? You're gonna tell me that the thought of possibly liking your best friend never crossed your mind?"

"I mean, yeah. But I TOLD you that one time. I didn't just go around kissing you! And I swear I thought we were on the same page when it came to that. We were like twelve and I told you that I thought it would be nice to fall in love with my best friend but it never even went past that! Now you're basically telling me that our whole friendship is a lie, Shane. It's like you don't even care about it, which really sucks because you were the ONE relationship I could count on."

"Oh, so you're entitled to think about me like that for once in your life, but the second I do it, I'm shunned?"

"I NEVER ACTED ON IT! YOU KISSED ME!"

"YOU WERE TWELVE! I WOULDN'T EXPECT YOU TO ACT ON IT, JO!"

"OH, YOU'RE SO FULL OF SHIT." I roll my eyes up to the ceiling and shake my head. "So because we're sixteen now and you just so happened to think about me like that, you're excused to act on it? You KISSED me. You know what that shows me? That just goes to show me that you don't care about me and you don't even care about our friendship."

"Okay, now you're overreacting. WHERE did I ever say that I don't care about you or our friendship?"

"WHEN YOU KISSED ME YOU IDIOT."

"IT WAS ONE MEASLY LITTLE KISS."

"IT DOESN'T MATTER!" I thought I was done with the whole crying thing, but more and more tears just streak down my cheeks relentlessly. "IT SHOULD'VE NEVER HAPPENED! But it DID happen. YOU did it and now… YOU RUINED EVERYTHING WITH THAT KISS. You were my best friend. I… I couldn't count on a mother, I couldn't count on a father, I couldn't even count on my grandma to always be there for me. But I could count on you. You were the ONE person I KNEW wasn't going anywhere and now you just threw all that away. Now what am I supposed to think? The next time I'm sleeping over your house, how am I supposed to know you don't wanna act on it again? You ruined it, Shane."

"Jo, you're taking this way too far." He sits down on my head and holds his head in his hands. "I don't like you. I don't find you attractive, I don't want to kiss you, I don't want to jump your bones. I LOVE you, though. You're the best friend I've ever had and I would've never done that to you if I thought it was gonna cause a rift. Our relationship means a lot to me, despite what you think. THAT'S why I did it. I did it because our relationship means a lot to me. I swear, the kiss wasn't… romantic. I didn't even like it…"

"Okay, now I'm really fucking confused…."

He just looks at me. "Listen to me, alright? LISTEN." I shrug to let him know that I'm listening to whatever he has to say. It's not really gonna make much of a difference to me, though. He just ruined us. "I really, really like Leah. And I can see that you like Alex a whole lot, too. We're both… going in different directions, you know? You're getting a boyfriend and I'm getting a girlfriend. And of COURSE that thought has always been in the back of my mind. For god's sake, you're the prettiest girl in our entire grade AND you're smart. I would be lying to you if I said that I never thought you were pretty or whatever. And for a split second, I thought I was jealous of Alex because he gets to have you. For a SECOND, I thought that I wanted you. And it scared me, J. It really scared me because I thought… I thought…" I think he's getting ready to cry again. "I thought for sure if I found that I really did want you, we'd never be able to be friends. The only way I could shut my mind up was to kiss you and see if I felt anything while I kissed you. And I felt NOTHING. I didn't even like it. It grossed me out, actually. And I realized after I kissed you that the jealousy I was feeling towards Alex wasn't because he gets to call you his girlfriend. I'm jealous because I don't want to share my time with you."

_Okay, he's making a little bit of sense to me now. Maybe the kiss really wasn't romantic or sexual. I understand him. God I feel so bad for choking him now. _"…What makes you think I want to share my time with Leah? We hardly talk to each other in school anymore because you spend all your time with Leah. It makes me sad thinking about how I have to learn how to share my best friend, but it's something I deal with Shane. It doesn't feel good, but I deal with it. It scares me to death when I think about how I'm not your number one girl anymore. But… like I said, I'm dealing with it." I sit down next to him and lay my head against his shoulder.

"You're still my number one girl, J. I might not spend all my time in school with you, but Leah's not even close to taking your spot. All the Leahs in the world aren't worth my best friend."

"…I guess I can say the same about you." I reach up and pat him on his cheek. "I'm sorry for hitting you like that."

"It's okay. I probably deserved that. I shouldn't have just… kissed you like that. And I promise we don't have to talk about it anymore."

"Yeah." I sigh. _Just try to forget about it. You love Shane. Things don't need to be awkward between you guys because of that… it's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be okay. _"…I'm kinda glad it was just a kiss, actually. Compared to what I originally thought you put on my lips, a kiss is so much better…"

"What'd you think I put on your lips?"

"You don't wanna know…"

* * *

**Thurs, Oct 16, 2013**

**11:47 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **U still up?

**Me: **yeah. i'm laying in bed listening to music. why?

**Alex: **What r u listening to?

**Me: **yellowcard.

**Alex: **That a song? By who?

**Me: **it's a band. the song i'm listening to is ocean avenue.

**Alex: **I'm a band kind of guy and I never heard of them

**Me: **whatever. you obviously don't know good music.

**Alex: **Change the song and tell me what you're listening to now. I bet I know the next song

**Me: **okay then.

**Alex: **Artist?

**Me: **all american rejects.

**Alex: **dirty little secret?

**Me: **gives you hell :p okay enough about me. what are you texting me for this late at night?

**Alex: **I actually like gives u hell. But I wanted 2 make sure u don't forget about 2morrow.

**Me: **i won't forget. you'll give me the shirt in breakfast tomorrow morning right?

**Alex: **yea. I'll wait for u by the spot we come out of the metal detectors from. Goodnight

**Me: **goodnight. see you tomorrow :)

**Alex: **night.

* * *

_What if people ask you about him? What do you say? It doesn't matter what people say about it though. You're wearing his jersey because HE wants you to. He asked you and he wanted you to. You're in a good mood. Nobody's gonna bring you down today. _I pull down my eyelid and do my bottom lid's mascara. The light purple eye shadow I put on makes my eyes look freakishly green for some reason. I glance up at my cable box to see what time it is. It's 7:23. Shane's gonna be here any second to get me. I twist the cap back on to my mascara and get up. I spray a couple puffs of perfume on my wrists and neck and turn my lights out. I run down the steps to put my shoes on quietly because my gram is still asleep. The medicine the doctors gave her makes her really tired so I just told her not to worry about making me breakfast this morning.

It's chilly outside this morning so I pull a jacket over my white tank top. I'm glad I'm going to wear something over the tank top today because it's not exactly the most appropriate thing to wear to school. It's really low-cut with lace trim around the chest and waist. I'm not really supposed to wear it without something over it because Shane thinks it's slutty and I have to agree. I stomp on the only pair of Uggs I own and button the sides. Brown Uggs go with everything, don't they? I don't want to look stupid with the jersey. I've seen the jerseys before but I've never actually paid attention to them. I know they're dark purple with white lettering and numbering but that's just about all I know. I bend down and make sure my jeans are tucked neatly inside the boots and adjust the white belt I wore with them today.

Sure enough, Shane's knocking at the front door. I push my hair back away from my face, grab my regular purse, my book purse, my cell phone and a piece of gum. I get the feeling that I'm going to regret wearing my hair down. I originally planned on wearing it tied back in a ponytail but this morning, I realized that I didn't really want ponytail creases in it after I took the time to straighten it last night. So I parted it to the side, took my side-bangs out and let it down. I'm pretty comfortable with the way I look today honestly. I made sure every last detail of my outfit is perfect. My black-rimmed glasses don't even have a speck of dirt on them, I put lotion on the part of my kneecap that is exposed by the hole in my jeans, I painted my nails purple after Shane left last night and I even changed my earrings to pretty purple/blue sapphire studs. I just need everything to be perfect about today. I want to look casual, yet pretty without trying too hard.

I open my front door and step out into the brisk morning air with Shane. I'm trying pretty hard not to think about what happened yesterday. It's done, it's over and it happened. I'm not pissed off about it anymore and I'm just not going to worry about it. "Can you tell I'm freaking out?"

"Nah." Shane shakes his head and lazily drags his football bag on the ground as we start walking. "Leah's wearing my number on her cheek all day in school, so I gotta look fresh all day." He flashes me his pearly white teeth. "You know, I gotta look nice for the ladies… let them know what they're missin' out on."

"…They're not missing much." I mumble.

**x x x**

"Thank you." I softly whisper to Mrs. Anderson as I take my book-purse off her when she finishes checking through it for the metal detectors. I sling the straps on my shoulder and walk up the steps that lead directly into the cafeteria. I was doing so well up until the point that the bus pulled into the school parking lot. I'm seriously freaking out right now. _People already stare at me when we walk into the cafeteria during lunch together, I can only imagine what it's gonna be like today when they see me wearing his football jersey. It doesn't pay to be this damn nervous. _Once I get into the cafeteria, I stay rather close to the doors because I don't want to miss Alex when he comes in. I lean against a pillar and pull my cell phone out of my back pocket.

I adjust my glasses on my face and just keep my head down on my phone, pretending to be busy scrolling through my Instagram feed. I'm hardly ever on my Instagram. I get on every now and again, like a couple pictures and sign out. I don't post on it and I often forget I even have an account. I have like three posts on it. _Alex will know what to say to people if and when they ask. I'm almost certain that I'll get a few dirty looks and questions asked. If I don't know what to say, Alex will know what to say. Or maybe they'll just get it when they see me wearing his uniform. I'm worrying myself sick over this. _I take my eyes off my cell phone and scan the cafeteria to see if he's here yet. He said he'd wait for me by the metal detector doors. Where is he? I look over towards the water fountains. Steph, Heather and Leah are all dolled up in their cheer uniforms chatting away. I look at the line to get breakfast in. Shane and Jackson are both in line getting their food. April's standing directly across the cafeteria from me, busily copying down something into a green notebook. Where is Alex?

I just sigh and go back to looking through my phone. I don't try, but I can't help but tune into the conversations of the people that pass by me when they come out of the metal detector lines and through the doors. Kelsey and Billy are hooking up tonight after the game, Julie's a big fat bitch, Mary screwed Jill's boyfriend last weekend and Mr. Poole is an asshole for giving a test on a Friday. That's what I've gathered from the passersby so far. I turn my head so I can see behind me and notice that a group of junior and senior boys are about to walk past. I just wait until they walk by to pick my head back up.

I don't know any of their names but I know that at least two of them are on the football team. "The freshmen are getting hotter and hotter every year." One of the boys smugly comments to his friends. "You see the freshman Karev's been toting around?"

"Oh yeah, the one with the bangin' ass body?"

"And the dimples in her back? Man, the things I would do to that one. If she's fifteen, I'm fifteen too."

_I don't know who in the blue hell they're talking about, but it sure as hell isn't me. Don't even say anything to those assholes. They're not worth it. _I just close my eyes and try to tune them out. You ever notice how hard it is to ignore something you don't WANT to ignore? It's like I don't want to hear what they have to say about me but I can't help but listen anyway.

"Isn't that her right there?" Another one of the same boys whispers quite loudly to his friends. I don't even have to look up to know that they see me. _They're not worth it._

The most obnoxious boy speaks up. "Hell yeah that's her. She got a nice ass! I should go holler at her." _Come the hell on, Alex. Where are you? _

"Come on." All of sudden, he comes up behind me and grabs my arm. "I would've been here sooner but my goddamned car wouldn't start." He doesn't seem like he's in the best of moods which is perfect because neither am I. I'm resisting the urge to slap the shit out of somebody though. According to Leah and Shane, I already knew some of the comments that people have been making about me. I just didn't think the comments would piss me off as much when I actually heard them.

"You should probably tell your friends to shut the hell up." I rip my arm out of his grasp and turn my head around. I thought I could stay quiet about it but it's hard. "Because you know, girls have feelings." I say that last part just loud enough for the group of assholes to hear me.

"You shut up and go into the bathroom." He grabs my arm again and forcibly pulls me away from the group of boys.

"You should've heard the things those assholes were saying about me!"

"Who cares? Get in the bathroom." He gently pushes me into the ladies room and just brushes it off.

"I care! I don't like my body being talked about like I'm a—" He puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me harder into the bathroom. "Get off me! You might be okay with them saying those things but I'm not!"

He forces me into the wall just outside the bathroom, away from the crowd and puts his hands on either side of my body. "It's not your job to say anything to them. There's ten of them and one of you. If they really wanted you, they could have you and there's nothing you could do about it because you're outnumbered. Think about that the next time you decide to go off the deep end to a group of boys." He moves one hand down to his drawstring bag and hands it to me. "I hear what they say about you every single day. You go put this on and let me handle them."

"If you hear what they say, why don't you stick up for me? That's what friends do…. You're supposed to tell them to shut up for me."

"You want me to stick up for you?" I nod at him. It's not until now that I calm down and realize that we're actually really close to each other right now. We're practically nose-to-nose talking to each other. _At least his breath smells good. _"Then go in the bathroom, put on the damn jersey and let me take care of them." He takes his hands away and lets me free. "You've gotta start listening to me. I won't let anything happen to you."

"Well what am I supposed to think when you don't even say anything to them?"

"You're making assumptions about what I do and what I don't do. I can't shut up every guy that thinks you're hot, Wilson." I nod again, realizing that he's right about that. He can't go around beating people up for me though I wish he could. "You need to control that temper and let me handle it."

"…I'm sorry."

"You gotta trust me. Trust that I'm not gonna let them do anything. They're just making comments. They know better than to even think about touching you."

"Okay."

"Trust me."

"I do."


	11. Rumors

"Is there something special about tonight's game or are the cheerleaders just overly excited for no reason?" I brush my hair back out of my face as I walk out of the media center with April. I figure that she'd know more about football games than I do because she's been dating a member of the football team far longer than I've been friends with one. I'm sure Shane probably mentioned to me if this week's game is a big game but I just don't really listen to him much when he talks about football. I pull on the sleeve of Alex's jersey to make sure it's aligned right with my shoulders. It's a little big on me but I've been watching April all day to see how she does it with Jackson's jersey. She adjusts it every now and again but for the most part, she just accepts the fact that it's too big. Some type of luck has been on my side all day because I've been able to tag along with April all day. The cheerleading squad and the football team have been excused from all morning classes to set up for the pep rally this afternoon which means we haven't been doing any work. The only thing I've done so far was present the geography project first period. Steph, Heather and Leah all left after we presented so I was alone until second period when I finally met up with April in the media center. I've been with her ever since.

"I think Jackson said something about if they win tonight they'll make it into the playoffs." April flips her lengthy, crimson red hair over her shoulder and holds onto the railing as we start walking down the ramp to get onto the first floor of the school. "Are you just gonna pal around with me until lunch?"

"Yeah…if that's okay with you."

"It's fine with me as long as your third period teacher knows where you are. I'll have Mrs. Farmer call for you." She turns into the first floor computer lap and puts her purse down on one of the tables next to a computer. There's literally nobody in the lab right now which makes me wonder if we're even allowed in here. "Who do you have this period?" April sits down at a computer and starts logging on it.

I follow her lead and sit down at the computer next to her. "Rixton." I look up as the slender, elderly Mrs. Farmer walks through the door. I have Farmer for computer applications in the afternoon. She's a pretty cool teacher if you're on her good side. With Farmer in the room, that makes three. It's just me, April and Farmer.

"Hey Farm, can you call up to Mr. Rixton's room and let him know that Jo's down here with us? She said he shouldn't mind but if he asks, just tell him that she's helping me with something." In her purse, April rummages around for something that's clearly at the bottom of it.

"Jo who, Wilson?" Mrs. Farmer looks up from her desk. "Do you have Rixton for chemistry, Jo?" She walks over to the phone on her wall and picks it up. "I thought chemistry couldn't be taken until sophomore year."

"I tested into it over the summer. The eighth grade science teacher recommended that I skip biology so I tested into it during the summer. I already have my bio credit." I fluently explain that to her. It's not the first time I've had to explain something like that. I'm the only freshman in my chemistry class because it's not a freshman class. Every other freshman has to take biology but since I was recommended to skip it by my eighth grade teacher, I had to take this test over the summer and if I scored a certain percentage, I could skip biology and get the credit for it.

"So you're a brainiac too?" April finally pulls what she was looking for out of her purse; her headphones. "It's about time Alex dates somebody that isn't as dumb as a doornail." She mumbles under her breath. "You want one?" She offers one of her earbuds to me. I nod and take it, putting it in my left ear.

"Me and Alex aren't dating though. We're friends…" I adjust the headphone in my ear and scoot closer so it's not pulling as much. "But he usually goes after the dumb ones?"

"Alex wouldn't give you his football jersey to wear around school all day if you weren't dating, Jo." She plugs her headphones into her cell phone and taps in her code. "He's not exactly the best at telling girls how he feels about them, but I think it's safe to say you're his lady-candy. The jersey speaks volumes." April goes into her music app and turns it on shuffle. "If you want to change the song, my code's 1-4-3-2." As if she's busy, she starts doing some work on the computer.

_I'm really trying not to read too much into what the jersey actually means, but is she serious? Am I Alex's girlfriend? _I don't have anything I need to do for school because I'm caught up with all my work but I'm sure I can find something to do to keep myself busy while April works. Underneath the computer table, my foot starts tapping along to the beat of the song and I quietly mouth the lyrics I know. "Give a little time to me or burn this out. We'll play hide and seek to turn this around. All I want is the taste that your lips allow. My my, my my, give me love."

"You dig Ed Sheeran?" April suddenly stops typing and turns her attention to me. I blush simply for the fact that she caught me lip-synching. I shrug out of embarrassment. "I knew there was a reason I liked you. What other kind of music are you into?"

"…I really like everything." I hate when people ask me what my favorite kind of music is because I never know what to say. I don't have a favorite type of music. I listen to everything and whatever I like, I like. "I like rock, pop, hip-hop, r&b… everything."

"I'm always looking for someone to go to Warped with me. Meredith and Cristina just don't know good music and I'd have to sedate Jackson for him to enjoy it with me. He hates everything that isn't rap. That's probably why him and Alex get along so well."

"…Warped Tour? You've been to Warped Tour?" _Oh my god I'm so jealous of her! I've never had anyone to go with either! I don't even dare ask Shane because he just doesn't know any good bands and he'd be totally lost with the guys that play at Warped. _"You've seriously been to Warped Tour?"

"Yeah. I go every year, usually with my sister Libby and her friend Janet. I'm always the third wheel so I'm always looking for someone to come with me but there's only a select amount of people that really appreciate Warped." She picks up her phone just as "Give Me Love" ends and scrolls through more music. "You ever been?"

"No, oh my god, I WISH." I'm in like, serious awe right now. She's been to WARPED. I've always wanted to go! "Tell me you saw the lineup for this year. TELL me you saw it."

"Yes I've seen it and I almost threw up when I saw that We The Kings is coming this year."

"And The Ready Set! I so would kill to go."

"I'll ask Libby tonight if she and Janet are going this year and if they are, you can definitely come with us. Even if she and Janet aren't going, me and you can go. It's going to be in Olympia."

"Oh my god April, I love you." I don't think grammy would mind if I went to Olympia with April. It's only an hour away and I'd be with a friend. I'd still have to ask but I really don't think she'll mind. "My best friend thinks I'm nothing more than a One Direction worshipping band geek, but it's so much deeper than that."

"Oh no, you don't like One Direction?"

"…I love One Direction, actually. Nobody understands though. They actually make good music."

"THANK YOU!" She throws her head back. "My goodness, somebody gets it! Jackson's always teasing me about them. He thinks that just because I'm a senior I can't be in love with a boy-band. He doesn't get it. Me and you need to give Alex and Jackson both some lessons." I can't believe how much fun I'm literally having with April. I honestly never thought I could relate to another girl like this. I thought I was doomed to get along better with guys than I do with girls but I think April could potentially be the female Shane. "Ugh, I'm in love with you, Jo." I blush again. "You're like… a miniature me. Finally I have a little sister! You happen to be my boyfriend's best friend's girlfriend, but that's fine too. We can just double date."

"…I would love to double date with you and Jackson but it's seriously not even like that with me and Alex. I know I'm wearing his jersey and all but I think it's more of a friendly thing than it is a romantic thing. I can tell when a guy likes me and I'm just not getting that vibe with him." I grab a chunk of my hair and try to find split ends. My grammy does a pretty good job of making sure I get regular trims on my hair so I don't have any split ends but I can still look. It beats looking April in the eye right now. "I think we're just friends."

"Well you're wrong about that." She pulls the headphone out of my ear and shoves them back into her purse. "Why aren't you getting that vibe?"

"…He's kind of mean to me." I keep picking at my non-existent split ends and sigh. "Like this morning he kind of like… manhandled me. He didn't hurt me or hit me or anything like that; he just like… pushed me away and told me to shut up. He didn't tell me to shut up meanly… it was more like a… I don't know." I realize I probably just made Alex sound like a giant douche so I got some cleaning up to do. April is listening to me intently while searching through her purse for something else. "These guys were talking nasty about me this morning and it made me mad. They were talking loud enough for him to hear so I know he heard them but he didn't even say anything about it. He just pulled me away and told me to go change into his jersey. So I stuck up for myself and he told me to shut up and he pushed me into the bathroom. It's like… he didn't really care too much what they said, even though they were being disgusting."

"I'm listening to you, and I'm listening to every word you just said, but I have to admit that you're missing the point completely." She hands me a piece of gum from the pack she finally found in her purse and leans closer into me so we can talk more personally. "Okay first of all, he didn't mean shut up in a bad way. He meant shut up as in… let him handle it. I haven't even been speaking Alex too long and I already know what that means. And that push wasn't meant to hurt you. It was meant for you to understand that he was being serious. You gotta start reading between the lines." I nod, listening to everything she's saying. It's obvious that speaking "Alex" is something I have yet to learn. "And he cares about what they said. I didn't understand it earlier but it makes sense hearing your side of the story."

"My side?"

"Yeah, your side." She looks at me for a minute and then her face tells me that she realizes that I don't know what she's talking about. "In first period this morning, Alex was going off on Thomas for something that he wouldn't even tell us about. They were just arguing about something and Alex told him that he needed to watch his mouth and Thomas said that everybody was thinking it or whatever."

"Thinking what?"

"Whatever Thomas said about you, I guess. Alex told Thomas to watch what he says and Thomas said he was just saying what everybody in the entire school was thinking. Which I guess that made Alex mad because somehow a chair got pushed into a wall and they both got detention for the rest of first period. Alex wouldn't even tell us what Thomas said but we all assumed that it had something to do with you because the only time Alex gets mad like that is when somebody has something bad to say about you."

"…He gets mad? Over things that are said about me?"

"Oh honey, you really are lost." April puts her hand on my shoulder in a mothering gesture and shakes her head. "Every day it's something new. Yesterday it was Jake saying that you have nice boobs, on Wednesday it was a group of juniors making bets on if you…" She stops talking on that note. "Every day it's something new that sets Alex off. It just gets bad when Mer or Jackson aren't around to calm him down before it escalates."

"April, what were you about to say?"

"Nothing, Jo. Don't worry about it." She pushes the home button on her phone and checks the time. "You've probably already heard about the bet."

"I haven't…" _Wow, people really do talk about me. I was beginning to think that Leah and Shane were just pulling my leg when they said that people talk about me. Why haven't I heard any of the rumors about me? Why haven't I heard anything that anyone's said? _"What were they betting on, April? Nobody ever tells me what people say…" I look down in my lap and bite my bottom lip. "…Everybody's so quick to tell me that people are talking about me, but nobody ever wants to tell me what's being said…"

"They were just betting on whether or not you…" I can tell she's uncomfortable with even telling me but I really need to know. It's about me, I think I deserve to know. "Whether or not you… give…" She lowers her tone to a mere whisper. "Oral."

My jaw just drops at that. _What?! Oh god, WHO said that? WHO was making bets about it? _"They did what?"

"Yeah. It was a pretty big group of juniors betting on it at lunch on Wednesday. I think they said something about the YES jar having like… a hundred bucks in it and the NO jar had like twenty." My jaw is literally still on the floor and I can't pick it up. I'm not even mad about it I don't think. I think I'm upset, but not mad. I just don't get why boys have to think about that. mean, they can't just take bets on whether or not I have a nice personality? They have to take bets on whether or not I go down on boys? I'm not gonna lie; I could cry right now, but I won't. "Don't even worry about it, Jo. Alex shut it down yesterday. Nobody thinks you're like that. It was just a bunch of immature boys doing what they do best."

"…W..What did Alex think? Did he think I'm… easy?" _I mean, if those guys were betting that I go down on boys, it's pretty much a given that they think I'm a slut. I hope Alex doesn't think I'm a slut. I'm not a slut. I mean, the circumstances that I lost my virginity under weren't exactly commendable but the only person that knows about that is the boy I lost it to and Shane. Shane wouldn't tell anybody about it and the boy doesn't even go to our school. Having sex one time doesn't make you a whore, even if you did have it outside. _

"No! No, Jo. He doesn't think you're easy. He doesn't believe any of the rumors those boys have started about you. He knows they're not true and he knows that they're just making stuff up because he's interested in you. He knows they would never say anything or make up lies about you if he didn't want you. He knows they're just jealous that they didn't notice you until he did."

"…What rumors? He doesn't believe what rumors?"

"I'm not gonna keep filling your head with this crap. Yes, boys make up rumors about you. Yes, boys tell lies because they're desperate. Don't even let it ruin your day. I can't tell you how many times girls have told Jackson things about me because they didn't want me with him. It'll blow over in about a month. It took a month for people to realize that Jackson didn't believe the rumors about me and they'll realize that Alex doesn't believe them too. Just wait it out."

"But WHAT rumors? I haven't even heard anything!"

"I'm not even telling you. It's not gonna do anything but make you sad. You're just a little baby freshman and you don't need to be sad. You don't need to know everything, Jo. It's best if you don't know sometimes."

"…Just tell me one. I HAVE to make sure Alex doesn't believe any of them. If I tell him not to believe whatever's said, it won't be as effective as if I tell him about a specific one not to believe. Just tell me one. Tell me the WORST one."

"…You don't want to know the worst one."

"Just tell me, April." I close my eyes and grit my teeth. "I can take it. Just tell me."

"There was just one about something that happened last weekend. But your one friend put a stop to it. He told them that you were over his house the entire weekend, so he shut that rumor down. So it's not even a rumor anymore. It was just something this boy made up. He even admitted that he lied after your friend said you were over his house. It's nothing."

"What. Was. The. Rumor?"

"…He just said that he had sex with you last weekend but it was all proven false."

"WHO?! WHO SAID THAT?!" _Calm yourself. You're in school. CALM YOURSELF. _

"Some irrelevant junior. It's not a big deal anymore. Everyone knows it was a lie."

"That's SO not true. I…I haven't even done anything like that since… I…" I just purse my lips together. "It's just not true."

"And everybody knows that. Everybody knows that it's not true, Jo. Don't even let it bother you."

_And I remember when your biggest worry was the rumors about you being a lesbian. I'd rather them think I were gay at this point._

* * *

"Hey babe, I missed you all morning." Jackson joins April and I while we're walking down the hall to the lunchroom. He and April are both talented, because somehow they're able to kiss each other on the lips without even stopping walking. Jackson puts his arm around April's shoulder and pulls her closer to him. "'Sup Wilson? I didn't quite miss you all morning, but it's still nice to see you." He waves at me with his free hand. I giggle to myself and reciprocate his wave. "The pep rally is gonna be so kick ass today. I can't wait for you guys to see it." The way he's holding April so close to his body kind of makes me a little bit jealous. April and Jackson don't get quite as many stares and gawks that me and Alex do, but the little bit they do get seem un-phasing to April. Jackson's holding her so tight, as if he's protecting her from all the words and stares and gossip and gasps. I'm beginning to think I'd have to pay Alex to put his arm around me in public.

"What's so special about it?" April weasels her arm around Jackson's waist and looks up at him with nothing but love in her eyes. _They're so perfect together. _

"I can't tell you that. Just know that it's gonna be awesome. The cheerleaders have us playing this game. We spent most of the time practicing how the game is gonna go, and I think you're gonna love it."

If I look up while I'm walking down the hallway, all I see are girls literally pointing at me and whispering about me. It's been like this all day. It's normally only a few stares and a couple comments but they're literally pointing at me this time. I've already talked myself out of taking the jersey off twice, but it's sounding really good right now. I just don't get what the big deal is. I want to just stand in the middle of the hallway and yell out "Yeah I'm wearing Alex Karev's jersey, what's the big deal?!" but that'll get me pointed at some more. I don't think I can deal with the pointing. I can deal with the staring, I can deal with the snarky comments but the pointing isn't something I'm prepared to tolerate. So instead of watching all the girls pointing at me, I just keep my head down while I'm walking.

When I see the pattern of the floor change to let me know I'm in the cafeteria, I pick my head up. It's already loaded up with people getting their lunch trays. Next to the bathrooms, Steph and Heather are sitting at a table selling something. I have to squint a little bit to see what they're selling. It looks like glow sticks. I look at the sign above the table and adjust my glasses on my face to read it. GLOW STICKS. $1 FOR ONE, $3 FOR FIVE. _What the hell are they selling glow sticks for? And why are so many people actually buying them without knowing what they're for?_

"Hey." Alex comes over to me with two glow sticks in his hand. "Green or yellow? They ran out of pink and blue." Is he really asking me what color glow stick I want? Obviously if I had to pick, I'd choose yellow but seriously? I don't know why I expect him to say something more than "Green or yellow" to me but I do.

"Yellow."

He cracks the yellow one up into a circle, pops the end inside the little tube to hold it in the circle position and hands it to me. "Hold onto this until the pep rally later." I'm really not in a good mood right now. I've had two periods to get over the rumors and crap that April told me about but I'm still not even over it. I'm in a really shitty mood to say the least. I'm not angry or anything I'm just… upset, I guess. Like I could seriously just spend the rest of my day crying. I think I'm more frustrated than anything. As always, my face gives away my mood and he definitely sees it. "What's the matter with you?"

I just roll my eyes and shake my head. "I'm just not sure if this is even worth it anymore." I mumble out loud.

"If what's worth it? What are you even talking about?"

"I just keep thinking…" I hand the yellow glow stick back to him and take the excess jersey I stuffed in my back pocket out. "What's the point? I'm putting myself through all this for no reason. I like being your friend and all, but I'm not sure if it's worth it."

"Worth what, Wilson?"

I grab the rim of the jersey and pull it over my head, right there in the middle of everything. I don't even care what people think about me right now. I'm just done with everything. I'm probably a little bit chestier than I'm willing to admit, because the weight of my boobs is clearly weighing down my tank top, exposing a little bit too much. "Here. Just… take it." I pull up the chest part of my tank to cover up the tops of my boobs and hand the jersey to him. "The things I hear about myself every day, the whispering, the pointing, the staring at me. I'm not sure if being your friend is even worth it at this point."

"You're not…" He closes his eyes and grabs me by my arm, hard. Without any more words, he drags me out of the cafeteria and over to the bathrooms. "I'm not sure what you WANT from me. What do you want me to do? You're killing me, here."

"I want you to tell me what the hell this is! I want you to… I want you to tell me that this is worth it, Alex! Because right now, I don't think it is. I'm hearing all these nasty things about me, I'm being laughed at, I'm being taunted every day because of you. All of this started when I became friends with you. I don't even think this is worth it anymore. If this is how my life is gonna be, I don't want to be your friend."

Some random boy walks by us while we're talking and just nonchalantly whistles at me. "Nice tits, Jo."

"THAT! THAT'S NOT EVEN WORTH IT!" I literally just start shaking. "I never used to get any of that until we started hanging out! I don't… I don't LIKE that, Alex."

"Then put a damn shirt on." He stuffs his jersey back into my hands. "I still don't know what you want from me. You want me to tell off every jerk that says something to you?! I can't catch them all, but I've been trying!" His screaming voice is easily the hottest thing I've ever heard but it's scary at the same time. "Why don't you just tell me what you want me to do, and I'll do it."

"I want you to... not be ashamed of sticking up for me or whatever. I want you to be a better friend."

"So you don't think I'm being a good friend? Is that the problem?"

"Yeah! You're never… there. You shouldn't let them talk to me like that. They shouldn't even BE talking about me like that. And all the whispers and pointing and stuff has to STOP. You're my friend, you're supposed to be there for me. I'm going through too much to be your friend."

"I. Can't. Stop. That." He talks to me through clenched teeth. "No matter what I do, people are gonna talk shit about it—about US. It's just how it is. That's how jealousy works. I can beat every guy that hurts your feelings to a bloody pulp, I can tell my friends to shut every jealous girl that starts a rumor about you up, I can walk around and police people all damn day about these things but it WON'T do anything because jealous people will STILL talk. I don't get why you're mad at me for something I CAN'T control."

"Because I need to know that it's even…" I close my eyes and take a deep breath. "What is this? Frankly, I don't like for my head to be messed with, Alex. You're messing with my head. I don't know what this is. Every time I give you a little bit, you take WAY more than I'm giving. It's… it's confusing!"

"What are you even talking about?!"

"THIS!" I throw my hands up. "WHAT IS THIS?!"

"Stop making a scene for everybody while you still don't have a shirt on." He completely undermines what I just said to make his point. "What is what? I'm not confused by anything so maybe you're just complicated."

"…This… this relationship? Are we friends? Because I think we're friends and then you give me your jersey to wear around school all day. Are we… are we dating? Because I think we're dating then you go and let people say whatever they want about me whenever you're around. What is this?"

"…Was my giving you my jersey too subtle for you?" His tone is thick with sarcasm. "Because up until this point, I thought you were just trying to stop putting labels on us by calling me your friend. I didn't realize you were serious."

"…See, I don't speak that sarcastic shit. Just tell me the truth."

"Of course you're my girlfriend! Of course we're an item! What'd you think? Did you think I texted you good morning and goodnight for my health? Did you think I talk about your ass because I can? Did you think I asked you to wear my jersey to school because I'm so interested in being your BFF? Tell me you're not that naïve. I know you're a freshman, but I heard you're actually pretty smart."

"…So you _are_ my boyfriend?"

"Do you want me to spell it." He doesn't even say that like it's a question, he says it like it's a statement. "I didn't think I had to ask you flat out, but since you're being a little bit on the slow side with this… Will you put my jersey BACK on, because you're my girlfriend and I want the whole school to know it?"

"…Yes." I take the jersey back off him and pop it over my head. "And will you defend me because you're my boyfriend?"

"You really are pushing it here." He reaches out and adjusts the jersey around my shoulders so it fits as perfectly as possible. "And the next time you do that to me, you're on your own for the day."

"Do what to you?"

"Get naked in front of the whole school. It's bad enough I already deal with the boys having dirty little fantasies about you already, then you go and add fuel to their fire by taking your shirt off in front of the whole high school."

"I wasn't naked. I have an undershirt on."

"That skimpy little thing? You might as well have been naked." He pulls a chunk of my hair out of the jersey and brushes it down with his hand. "Don't ever think that I don't care about what people say, because I do. I could just care less about what they say to me." His eyes lock on mine and I literally feel like I'm going to melt. "I don't care what they say to me, but it becomes a problem when they start hurting your feelings, okay?"

"Okay." _Wait, I have a boyfriend?! Holy hell! I've… I have to pee. _

"…We can hold hands, I guess. If it'll make you feel better…" He turns his hand palm-up and offers it to me. With a soft smile, I put my hand in his and lock my fingers inside his. "If I don't see you again after lunch, I'll see you after my game. You're coming tonight, aren't you?" Holding hands, we both start walking back towards the cafeteria. I feel… better. I know I'm going to get stares and dirty looks when they see me holding his hand but I feel okay because I AM holding his hand. He's almost like my security blanket, I guess.

"Of course I'm coming. You want me to wear your jersey to the game too?" With my free hand, I reach over and touch his bicep. His muscle is slightly flexed because he's using it to hold my hand tightly.

"No. I want you to wear something warmer. It's supposed to get pretty chilly tonight and you don't need to be out there wearing my jersey."

"I'll give it back to you before I leave school today then."

"Don't worry about it. You're coming out after the game with us, aren't you? April said she invited you to the pizza joint we always go to. She said you, Ross and his girlfriend are coming."

"Yeah, I am."

"Then just give it to me then. I don't know if I'll see you after the pep rally either. Game day is usually always busy for me. Plus the cheerleaders got this big black out pep rally planned for the day, so that just adds to it. So just in case I don't get the chance to see you again until after my game, here's the deal for tonight." He pulls me a little closer to his body as we make our way to the table we always sit at. People are staring but I don't care. "April told me you're driving to the pizza place afterwards, right?" I nod my head. "I'll probably get there later than you will because I'm gonna shower in the locker room after my game, so don't get worried. I'll be late but I'll be there. You don't have to worry about bringing money to eat on. If it's still early by the time we get out of the pizza place, we can go hang out at my house and watch TV or something. When's your curfew?"

"11:30 when I have the car out, but if I'm not driving then I don't have to be in until like… one as long as I take my house key."

"So 11:30, since you're gonna have the car out. So just nix my house afterwards, we can hang out at my place some other time."

"…I can always drop the car back off." I suggest. "Like… after we go out to eat, I can drop the car back off at my house and then we can go to your house."

"Are you sure you're not gonna get into trouble?"

"I'm positive. My gram doesn't mind me being out late on weekends. She knows I'm a good kid…"

"Okay. So I'll follow you with my car back to your house so you can drop the car off and then we'll go back to my house. Um… Make sure you're dressed nicely or whatever. If I tell my mom I'm bringing a girl back to hang out at the house after my game, she'll probably wait up to meet you. She's weird like that."

"She sounds really nice." I can't help but smile at that. His mom sounds cute. "I would bring you in to meet my gram but she's old so she goes to bed super early. She'll probably be in bed by the time your game's over… so maybe some other time."

"I'm totally okay with that."

"So are you gonna score a touchdown for me tonight or what?"

"…Well coach does have me on offense and defense, but I don't know… I'll probably sack a couple times for you, how's that?"

"That works."

* * *

"Is this your first time at a game, Jo?" April carries two big purple blankets down the bleachers like this is an everyday occurrence for her. I brought my own blanket because it's supposed to go down to freezing tonight, plus a pair of gloves and a beanie hat to cover my ears. As opposed to every other Friday night, I'm especially excited for tonight. Of course it's not my first time at a game but it is my first time coming to cheer on my _boyfriend. _"If it is, you're in for a treat."

"It's not my first time at a game. I usually come to support my best friend, but he doesn't get in much. He'll play tonight though. So I'm here to support two people." I follow April down the bleachers to see where we'll be sitting. When I normally come to home games, I usually sit with Shane's little brothers and his mom because Steph cheers at home games. I actually have more friends to sit with this Friday so I'm excited. "Who all usually sits with you?"

"It's usually me, Cristina and Owen, Mer and Derek, sometimes Mark comes."

"Who's Mark?"

"Derek's friend. He's dating Mer's sister so that's usually why he comes."

"Meredith has a sister?"

"Half-sister. She's a cheerleader down there. She's a junior." April finally gets to the row of bleachers she wants to be at and starts walking towards a crowd of already-seated people. Geez. There's a crowd of them. "Her name's Lexie. She's the little one that's always getting thrown in the air off the pyramids." She approaches the group and sits down next to a boy with hair so red that he could probably be April's brother. I just quietly sit down right next to April.

In front of the red-haired guy, Cristina is sitting and lying between his legs. Mirroring Cristina and the ginger's position is Meredith and some pale-skinned guy with freakishly nice hair. Beside hair-dude is another dude with lighter, equally amazing hair. Okay, so the one Cristina's hanging all over must be Owen. Hair-dude must be…Derek. And other hair-dude is Mark. I cross my legs to seem proper and look down at the empty field. The cheerleaders are warming up over by the part of the locker room that the players run out of to break the paper sign. The other team is already on the field and the stands are already PACKED. "Is Jackson quarter-backing tonight?"

"No, he's receiving." April spreads one of her blankets across the both of our legs and leans forward to see all the ones that are sitting down the bleachers from her. "Owen, Der and Mark, this is my friend Jo. Jo, that's Owen, Derek and Mark." She points to each person as she says their names and they all seem pretty friendly because they wave to me.

"Come to see your man, hairball?" Cristina says. I think she means hi.

"April told us you were coming to hang with the big kids tonight. You'll have fun with us." Meredith's hello is a lot more welcoming than Cristina's. "Guys, she's Alex's girlfriend… the one he's been talking about."

"The freshman?" Owen sounds shocked.

"Yeah, I told you she was a grown one. A hairy, grown one." Cristina nods like she was equally as surprised when she met me.

"Why do you call her a hairball? She's not even hairy. The way you described her, you had me thinking Alex was dating a baboon." Derek leans forward and remarks at Cristina.

"Look at her. She is hairy. Have you ever seen that much hair? It's like when she turns around, all you see is the hair." Cristina motions to my hair which is hanging freely out of my beanie hat.

"So then you just say she has a lot of hair. You don't call her hairy." Derek seems confused.

"Whatever. She's hairy."

"This means they like you." April whispers to me.

_**LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO JAMES A. GARFIELD SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL AND THANK YOU FOR COMING OUT TO TONIGHT'S FOOTBALL GAME WHERE YOUR GARFIELD BULLDOGS HOST THE BEAVERS OF BALLARD HIGH SCHOOL. NOW LET'S MEET THE STARTING LINEUP FOR THE VISITING BEAVERS!**_

"Stand up, Jo… stand up. So Alex can see you cheering when they announce our starting lineup." April stands up and pulls me up with her. I can tell she's going to make me lose my voice tonight. I don't usually cheer at games like this. I just watch and clap here and there. But I can tell that April is going to MAKE me cheer tonight. I only half pay attention to the names the announcer is reading off for the visiting team's lineup. April is very tiny but she's pretty loud already.

_**AND NOW… THE STARTING LINEUP FOR YOUR GARFIELD BULLDOGS! **_As soon as the announcer says that, April starts hooting and hollering. She's gonna crack me up the whole night, I can see it now. _**STARTING IN THE RECEIVING POSITION, NUMBER 3, JACKSON AVERY! **_April screams so loud in my ear that I'm sure my brain just turned in a circle. I just bust out in laughter so loud that I can't even hear myself think. How could something so tiny be so loud? I'm not gonna scream for Alex. I'll clap, but no screaming. _**RECEIVING POSITION, NUMBER 25, SHANE ROSS!**_

"Go Shane!" I actually jump up and down and clap for him, because he NEVER gets playing time.

_**AND FINALLY, STARTING IN THE CENTER POSITION, NUMBER 55, ALEX KAREV!**_

"Wooooooo!" Is all I'm mustering up. I refuse to scream and make a fool outta myself like April is. It's adorable how hardcore April cheers for Jackson but I'm NOT doing all that for Alex. Finally, after all the players have been announced and the team ran and broke through the cheerleaders' sign, April and I sit down. Over the speakers, that Mercy song comes on while the team captains go out for the coin toss thing. This song reminds me of Shane. He called me thirsty once and I slapped him for it. He said something like "Lamborghini mercy, Jo you are so thirsty." And I hit him hard for that.

Surprisingly, APRIL starts singing along like she's all about hip-hop music. I can tell she's just a hardcore football fan. I swear, the more time I spend with April, the more I fall in love with her. She's so funny. "Lamborghini mercy, your chick she so thirsty. I'm in that two seat Lambo with your girl, she tryna jerk me." April starts dancing in her seat and urging me to sing along with her. I haven't stopped laughing since I got here.

"Drop it to the floor, make that ass shake. Make the ground move that's an ass-quake." I sing the only part of the rapping part I know. "Oh, April. What am I gonna do with you?"

"I told you I get a little crazy at football games!"

"You're super crazy." I look down at the field to see the players taking their positions. I think our team won the coin toss and we're receiving, because the other team is in the position to kick off. April stands up once again to watch the kick-off while I sit down and watch it. The other team kicks the ball high in the air and it falls into the arms of our team's number 25. _Wait, number 25 has the ball! _Number 25 catches the ball and starts running SUPER fast up the field and that's when I stand up. "Oh my gosh, GO SHANE! GO SHANE!" I shout as loud as I can as if he can hear me over all the other people screaming. "GO SHANE!" I literally start jumping up and down when I see him nearing that goal post with nobody even close to tackling him. "GO SHANE!" _Oh my god, I'm gonna cry. He's gonna get his first high school touchdown! _He gets into the end-zone and slows up his stride just as the announcer yells TOUCHDOWN BULLDOGS over the speakers.

"Jo, are you crying?!" April looks at me with a wide smile across her face.

"That's my best friend! He's my best friend! This is the first game he ever played in high school and he got his first touchdown." I wipe my eyes. _I feel like I'm his mother and I'm just so proud. _"WOOO GO SHANEY!" I look down on the sidelines at Leah and see she's freaking out just as much as I am.

"You better cry if Alex scores a touchdown tonight!"

"I probably freaking will! I'm such an idiot…" I sit back down while our team gets ready to kick off to the other team and wipe my face off. "I just can't believe he actually scored a touchdown and he never gets playing time."

"You're so freaking cute, Wilson. You're so cute." April sits down next to me and gives me a hug.

"Stop… I can't believe I just cried like that over Shane scoring a touchdown." I just let April hug me and watch the field. I think I see Jackson on the sidelines giving Shane a bunch of props, but I can't even find Alex on the field. The other team's quarterback takes a step back, gets ready to throw and tosses a long ball down the field. I just watch where the ball goes. And the ball goes in the hands of one of our players. _**INTERCEPTION!**_

"JO, ALEX CAUGHT AN INTERCEPTION!" Meredith stands up and screams at me like I'm missing something.

"He what?!" I spring up off the bleachers and watch while my number 55 is running as fast as I assume he can. _Oh my god this is too much excitement for one night. I think I might pee my pants. _"No, no, no, no!" I clench my fists and yell out as a member of the other team is about to tackle my number 55. "DAMMIT!" I stomp my foot as soon as he's tackled.

"See how easy it is to turn into a football freak when your boyfriend's out there playing?!" April grabs me by my shoulders and shakes me. "You should see me when Jackson does something good!"

"I know, oh my god I wanna cry, rip somebody's head off and kiss him ALL AT THE SAME TIME!" I can't sit down anymore so I don't even try. "April, hold me. Hold me… hold me."

"If you're acting like this when all he did was catch an interception, I can't wait to see how you act when he scores! I'm gonna need you to hold me if Jackson scores though."

"If he scores…. I'm kissing him so much after this game!"

Meredith, Cristina and April all look at me like I just lost my mind. "Uh oh, go hairball!" Cristina is really getting a kick outta me. "I really didn't think anybody could beat Kepner with the hilarious reactions but you took the cake."

"Oh shut up, Cristina. You used to tell us about all the dirty sex you and Owen were gonna have every time he scored a touchdown last year!" April playfully snaps at her.

"I give hairball another two weeks before she starts blurting out all the sexual things she's gonna do to Alex when he scores. It's a natural reaction. You do it all the time every time Avery even moves."

"I'm just freaking out right now… I like wanna go out there on the field and high-five Shane and just give Alex the biggest, wettest…." I look at April and Cristina's faces. "…Hug."

"Riiiiight… that's totally what you were gonna say." Meredith winks at me.

"You guys know as well as we do that there's nothing sexier than a sweaty football player after a game." April defends both herself and me in the same sentence. "Especially when they're still excited after a big win… because then you get to have celebration sex!" I just don't even say anything about that. I don't wanna say anything to sound stupid, I don't wanna say anything to sound like a freak. I must admit that I expected talk like this, because after all, I'm hanging out with SENIORS.

"Shhh, April. There are little-virgin-hairball-freshman ears around here." Derek throws a piece of popcorn at April.

"Yeah, I'm sorry Jo. Stay innocent." April sits down after she apologizes.

"…I'm not innocent…"

Meredith gasps at that. "But you're a little baby freshman! You're supposed to stay pure!"

I'm blushing so hard right now it's not even funny. "…You should've told me that when I was fourteen…" I just put my head down.

"FOURTEEN?!" April's jaw drops.

"Okay, now you guys are judging me and this is just awkward…" Still blushing, I just look down at the ground.

"You were a baby!"

"I was… curious! It sucked and I never did it again, okay?"

"But you're a baby!"

"Just because you waited until you were eighteen to lose yours, doesn't mean she was a baby when she lost hers, Kepner." Cristina shockingly defends me. "Up top, hairball!" She offers me a high five and I slap her hand. I have to admit that this is the most fun I've had in a really long time.


	12. Rules

"So you're a freshman? Weird… I could've sworn you're in my advanced chemistry class." Meredith's sister, Lexie leans across the table as she continues to grill me. At this point, I'm not sure if she likes me or not. She's been asking me a whole bunch of out-of-the-blue questions even though we've only met about a half hour ago. I guess I'm just grateful that the questions haven't been super personal or anything. They've mostly been things about how I met Alex, if I play sports and if my hair was natural or not. "Did you get held back a grade or something?"

"No I um… I tested into the advanced class, so I skipped freshman biology and went straight to chemistry." I use my blue straw to stir around the ice cubes in my glass of Dr. Pepper. The majority of us have been here for about 45 minutes already. Leah and Lexie got here fifteen minutes after we did, Shane came about ten minutes ago and all we're left waiting for is Jackson and Alex. I realize that I'm completely out of my comfort zone tonight. Not only because I'm hanging out with mostly seniors but because Shane is literally sitting in the booth right across from me and we're not even talking. He seems all wrapped up in Leah while she excitedly gushes over his touchdown.

"You're a really pretty freshman. You should really try out for the cheer squad next year." Lexie reaches across the table and lightly grabs my hand. She uses her thumb to trace around the beds of my long fingernails as if she's inspecting me and I respectfully pull away from her when she does that. I don't really like when people touch me without asking. "You would totally fit in with us."

"I'm too uncoordinated to cheerlead." _And even if I were coordinated enough to cheerlead, I'm not a very loud person. I'd rather just stand in the back and twist pom-poms or something along the lines of that. _I lean forward and take a sip of my soda to get out of speaking any more than I need to. I turn my head and look down at the line of tables the hostess sat us at. Meredith and her boyfriend are sitting at the table furthest away from mine and across from them are Cristina and Owen. In the table next to those four, Shane and Leah are sitting beside one another and across from them are Mark and Lexie. I'm sitting by my lonesome directly beside Mark and Lexie and across from me is April with the empty spot that Jackson will sit in.

I sit back my chair and slide my hands into my hoodie pocket. I didn't remember until after I left the house earlier that Alex asked me to dress nicely because his mother is probably going to want to meet me. Here I am wearing the same ripped up skinny jeans I wore to school today, a pair of Uggs and a purple bulldogs hoodie. My hair probably looks like shit because I had a hat on the whole night and my glasses don't exactly make me look like a model. I run my fingers through my hair and pick at the nail polish on my fingernails when I'm done. _Alex and Jackson can walk through those doors any minute now… _It's not that I'm not having fun, because anything totally beats sitting in the house on a Friday night, but I just don't have anybody to talk to so I'm bored. Besides getting lectured and interrogated by Lexie, I mean. April's busy talking to Cristina and Meredith about something and Shane's of course, talking to Leah.

"Wilson!" Meredith hollers at me from down the table. I lift my head up and look at her, pulling myself out of my lonely thoughts. I raise my eyebrows to let her know that I'm listening to her. "How old are you?" I can tell that she's asking because the ones I haven't spoken to that much are wondering. She's probably just the only one that had enough balls to call me out and ask me about it.

"Sixteen."

"You have your driver's license, don't you?" I nod at her. I'm pretty sure I'm the only freshman that has my license. I mean, in Seattle you can get your driver's permit when you're fifteen and you can get your license after you've been driving on your permit for at least six months. My grandmother has been teaching me how to drive ever since I was fourteen and on my fifteenth birthday, we went to the DMV and I got my permit. I was fifteen when I passed my driver's test, just turned sixteen last month. The only reason I have my license is because grammy HATES driving. If she didn't need a chauffeur, I wouldn't even have it. Driving isn't important to me, really. After I answer her question about the license, Meredith turns her attention back to her friends and they continue chattering.

I sit back in my chair again with my hands in my hoodie pocket and just sigh. From the corner of my eye, I see Leah and Shane kiss each other. It's not an innocent kiss either. It's one of those hardcore, shove-your-tongue-down-each-other's-throat kisses. My nose involuntarily turns up at that. _Leah would probably kick my ass if she knew that Shane kissed me yesterday. Is it weird that I know that Shane's a good kisser now? I think that's awkward. Leah's kissing him and I just so happen to know that he's actually a decent kisser. Ew, I'll never live this down. _I lunge forward and take another sip of my soda. I don't even want the glass of soda. I'm freezing after being outside all night and the ice cold Dr. Pepper isn't making anything better. I got it because Alex is paying for me and it's cheap with free refills.

Sitting here watching Leah make out with Shane, I can't help but wonder if she really would try to fight me if I told her that I kissed him yesterday. I'm pretty sure Leah likes me, but I'm not sure if she likes me enough to just let the fact that I kissed her boyfriend go. _Do you think you could beat Leah in a fight? She's taller than you and probably lighter on her cheerleader feet than you are. Could you beat her up? _I haven't been in a serious fist fight, ever. I've had a couple playground fights before when I was a kid and I used to kick Shane's ass on a daily basis, but I've never been in a serious fist fight with someone that's fought me back. Luckily for me, nobody's ever hated me enough to pick a fight with me in school yet.

Finally, the door that we're all sitting next to opens up and in walks Jackson, followed by Alex. I cross my arms over my chest as my teeth begin to chatter from the gust of cold air they let in by coming in. Jackson lets the hostess know that they're with our group and they walk back to our tables. I'm not really paying much attention, but the little bit I do tune into, I hear Owen, Derek and Mark all giving Jackson and Alex props for the game like they did when Shane came in the doors with Leah. I cross my legs under the table and clench my jaw so my teeth can stop chattering before Alex gets over to me.

"So I didn't score any touchdowns, but I sacked the guy and caught an interception. Good enough for you?" He pulls out the empty chair next to me and sits down. I just nod instead of actually talking because if I talk, my jaw will start trembling and my teeth will start chattering and I just don't need that right now. I inhale a pretty deep breath and sigh. _He smells like Jesus. I know he said he was going to shower in the locker room after his game but how does someone smell like the good Lord after sweating while playing a two hour game? He smells like literal Jesus. _I break my concentration for a single second and already my teeth start to chatter. I try to play it off but he already noticed. "Are you cold?"

"…Freezing." I admit. I don't know why my stupid ass didn't put on anything heavier than a t-shirt underneath my hoodie. I had a turtleneck in my hands while I was getting dressed but I thought I might get hot in a turtleneck so I just put on a long-sleeved t-shirt instead. I'm on a roll with making stupid decisions this week. "I'll be fine… it's just…" I glance up at the ceiling, looking at the slats we're sitting beneath. "We're sitting right beneath the air conditioning."

"Why didn't you get a coffee or a hot chocolate? You're sitting there drinking soda with ice cubes floating in it." He scoots his chair closer to mine and puts his one arm out. Like an idiot, I just look at him. He visibly rolls his eyes at me out of frustration and keeps his arm out to me. "I don't have a jacket to give you, but either you can take the hug until the waiter comes over here or you can freeze your ass off." I slowly lean over and put my head against his bicep. He wraps his arm around me, pulls me closer to him and starts rubbing my arm in an attempt to warm me up. "They _do _sell hot chocolate here, for the record."

"I know." I take another deep breath so I can inhale the scent of him again. I'm not sure what he has on but I could smell it for the rest of my life and be okay with it. I don't know if it's Axe, Old Spice or Head & Shoulders but it smells amazing. Before he even has the chance to ask me again why I didn't order a warm drink, I open my mouth again. "Look, somebody else is footing my bill and I wasn't just gonna be rude and order the most expensive thing I saw." I'm blunt and brutally honest with him.

"If I wasn't willing to pay for whatever you wanted, I wouldn't have even mentioned you not bringing any money. I would've let you pay for your own food." He brings his free arm over and wraps it around my chest to make it so he's literally holding me.

"You're good at cuddling." I mumble into his chest and just lie there, enjoying the moment.

"…I don't cuddle, so don't ever ask me to. I like my space. I will not cuddle with you, I don't like to spoon, I'm not a hugger, I'm not even a kisser. Just don't ever ask me to cuddle, because you might get your feelings hurt."

"But you're cuddling with me right now…" I giggle. "And it's in public."

"Well I could let you go and let you freeze, but then I'd probably feel guilty." He sighs. "But seriously. If we're watching TV, if I'm playing a video game or we're together at a movie, don't even ask. You stay on your side, I'll stay on mine."

"You won't even hold my hand?"

"It depends on my mood."

"…But I like to cuddle. I like holding hands and hugging… you really won't hug me?"

"Wilson, I'm telling you that I'm NOT cuddling with you."

"Can you at least call me by my name? I don't walk around calling you 'Karev'. I have a name." I bring my hands up and rub his back to make the most of this moment since he obviously won't ever give me this chance any other time. I guess I can deal with no cuddling and no hugging and no kissing. He's just not lovey-dovey and I understand that. "Unless you want me to call you by your last name. How do you feel about pet names? Are those a no-no too?"

"I'm not gonna call you 'cupcake' or 'honey', so get that out of your head too."

"Alright, cookie lips." I poke my lip out in a pouting notion. "Okay, so no PDA, no pet names… any other rules I should know about?"

"…Just basically, anything that Kepner makes Avery do, I'm not doing. I'm not painting your toes, I'm not playing with your hair, I won't cook for you, we're not gonna have a 'song' and if I have food that I'm eating, you don't get to just eat it without asking. If it's cheesy, I'm not doing it. No cheesiness, no corniness, none of that."

"Aye aye, captain. Shall I request permission to kiss you when I want to?" I lift my head up slightly and look up at him. His eyes are just as green as mine are and the more I stare at him the more perfection I find.

He leans down and presses his lips against my forehead for a moment before he pulls away from me. "Just don't make a habit of it."

"D'aww…. He kissed her!" Down the table from us, Cristina clasps her hands together and puts them on her cheek like we're the cutest thing she's ever saw. "Mer, we should've got that on camera. He actually kissed the hairball." She really, seriously laughs her ass off. "He's gonna cough her up later."

"And he's hugging her… I don't know how I feel about new Alex." Meredith joins in with the taunting. For some reason, I don't mind it as much when it comes from them. In fact, their teasing makes me smile a little bit.

"Shut up!" Alex snaps at the two and suddenly stops all contact with me. He mumbles something inaudible underneath his breath and snatches the menu sitting in front of us on the table. After he lets me go, I sit upright in my chair and pull the left sleeve of my hoodie down a little further so my hand is covered by it. I stuff my sleeve into my mouth and start chewing on the cloth. When I'm nervous or embarrassed, I have to chew on something and since my fingernails are covered with purple nail polish, my sleeve is my only option. I wonder why he took that so seriously. They were only joking…

"Oh Alex, we're just messing with you!" Meredith flings the paper from her straw across two tables and hits him in his chin with it. _Nice aim. _"Hug your girlfriend! Don't be a jerk." I do kind of wish he'd hug me again. It was only a hug. I totally get that he's not really touchy-feely or anything like that but he could hug me. I'm his girlfriend. It's not like I'm asking him to make out with me. It's just a hug. _Then again, I've only been his girlfriend for a couple hours now. Maybe he feels like we're moving too fast. _I re-cross my legs under the table, scoot over so that I'm not too close to Alex and just keep chewing on my sleeve.

"I told you guys about that earlier today." He seems like he's calmed down just a little bit, but I can tell that he's still a little irritable. "I told you she doesn't like it and you guys keep doing it."

"Hairball, are you feeling uncomfortable by our teasing?" Cristina leans forward and asks me. I shake my head. They're really not bothering me by teasing us. I know they don't mean any harm by it. "See, I told you she's fine with it. You gotta loosen up a little bit. Hug your girlfriend and stop being so… evil-spawny."

"You don't have to lie to them. If their teasing makes you feel uncomfortable you can tell them." Alex leans down and whispers in my ear softly. "And if you want her to stop calling you names, just say so."

"Alex, I'm fine." I take my sleeve out of my mouth and look him in his eyes. "If I didn't like it, you'd know. I'm not too good at keeping quiet about things that bother me. If I was bothered by it, you'd know." I tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear and clear my throat. "But uh… if you don't want to hug me in front of them, you don't have to. You made it clear how you feel about PDA…"

"Hug her, hug her, hug her!" Jackson and April softly pound their fists on the table and start chanting together. Down the table, Cristina and Owen, Meredith and Derek, Lexie and Mark, even Leah and Shane join in until it's a fairly loud chant. "Hug, hug, hug!"

"I'm not hugging her just because you guys said to." The tone of Alex's voice alone is enough to shut them up. "Are we gonna order or not, because I'm hungry." He swiftly changes the subject as soon as the chanting stops. Everybody reluctantly starts to look at the menus that are in front of them, adding to the already tense situation. My cheeks are really red; I can feel how hot they are. Again, Alex leans down to my ear and whispers to me. "You can get whatever you want, I'm getting pizza." _Maybe he just doesn't want to hug me in front of his friends because we're not that serious yet. Maybe he doesn't think we're gonna last, so he doesn't want to like… do anything too quickly. Or maybe he just REALLY doesn't even want to touch me. Well, only one way to find out…_

Very subtly, I slowly slide my elbow over until it just barely touches his elbow. If he pulls away then I know for sure that he doesn't want me to touch him. He doesn't even budge. I slide my elbow over just a little bit more so that both our elbows are pressing against each other. He still doesn't budge. I just look towards the other end of the table to make it seem like I'm not doing this on purpose. The couples at the other end of the table are busy telling the waitress what they want. They're not even paying attention to our end of the table. I slowly drum my fingers on the table just waiting until the waitress makes her way over to us. _Well he's not pulling away, so maybe it's not me. I don't know what the problem is then. _I just turn my body completely around so that my back is to him.

Behind me, I can hear what I assume is him scooting his chair either towards me or away from me. I can feel the palms of his hands dig into my waist as he moves them to the front of my body. _Oh crap. DON'T! _His arms wrap themselves tight around my waist but his hands press into my bellybutton and I literally jump out of my seat. _Now he's gonna think I don't want him to touch me at all! _"..Not there." I lean back and whisper to him as I use my hands to move his down like a quarter of an inch to where my piercing isn't sore. "I… I have a belly piercing and it's still sore."

"Sorry." He mumbles and rests his head in the middle of my back. I can tell he's hunched over because if he was sitting straight up, his chin would be able to rest on my shoulder and not in the middle of my back. "Your hair smells really good." He mumbles again.

"Alex! At first you wouldn't hug her now you're practically second-basing with her in front of the whole table?" Mark, who happens to be holding Lexie's hand in front of everybody, takes this moment to comment. _If you make him stop hugging me again I'm going to jump across the table and strangle you and your nosy ass girlfriend. _I glance down to see what he means about "second-basing." _Oh come on, it's not like that! _I didn't even notice that Alex's hands are just a couple inches away from my "second base." I loosen my body up, preparing for him to stop hugging me like he did before.

To my surprise, he doesn't stop hugging me at all. Instead, he unfolds his hands, gives Mark the middle finger and resumes holding me. "I'm gonna start washing my hair with your shampoo." Alex inhales a deep whiff of my hair and exhales like he's in love. "Either that or you can give me a chunk of your hair to smell."

"Um… I don't think I want to cut my hair off just yet, but when I do I'll be sure to give it to you."

"Just let me take a little bit from the back. You won't even notice it's gone."

"I totally will notice that I'm missing hair from the back of my head."

"No you won't. You have enough of it." I feel him run his fingers through it. "You get a lot of comments about your hair?"

"…Sometimes, yeah." He keeps running his fingers through the back of my hair which I find weird because he said he wouldn't play with my hair but I think that's what he's doing. "Most people just think it's too thick and too long." I close my eyes for a moment. I could fall asleep to somebody playing with my hair. "…Are you a hair kinda guy?"

"Not really, yours just smells good. And it's really silky." He stops running his fingers through it for a second. "I think I might like playing with your hair. But don't tell anybody I said that."

* * *

"Are you sure you're not going to get in trouble for staying out late with me?" For the billionth time since I got in the car with him, he asks me once again. It's not even 11:00 yet and he's already panicking. "The last thing I need is for you to get in trouble for being out late and then you'll be banned from seeing me." I sigh and thump my head back against the headrest in his passenger's seat. I don't know how many times I have to tell him that my curfew is at 1:30. It's not registering in his brain for some reason. You know what? I'm not even answering him this time. Instead of answering him, I just give him a look that says it all. "I just want you to be sure that you're not going to get into trouble for this."

"If I were going to get into trouble, I wouldn't come." I turn my head and look out the window to see where we are. We're on the total opposite of town, a few blocks away from the school. He must live in the upper-class part of town if his house is over here by the school. Not that Shane and I don't live in the nice part of town; we just don't live in the nicest part. I practically live by all old people on a very quiet street. I think Shane, his little brothers and myself are the only kids that live where we do. "You live by the school?"

"Pretty much." He makes a sharp left turn onto a street full of one-story houses. All the houses look the same to me, just in different colors. They're all ranch-style, one floor houses with steps that lead to a porch that isn't very high to begin with. "Are you cool with dogs?" He slows down and turns the car into the driveway of a light brown bricked house. I adjust my glasses so I can look at the house in a better sense. It looks pretty small on the outside and it's really dark in there. The only lights that are on are coming from little candle-shaped window lights.

"I'm fine with dogs." I unbuckle my seatbelt just as he puts the car in park and open up my door. As soon as I step foot outside, my head starts pounding for some reason. Maybe it's a nervous headache. I comb through my hair with my fingers to make sure it's laying down right. _What if his mom doesn't like me? That's really important, isn't it? Like seriously, what if she thinks I'm…not good enough? I've never been very good at getting people to like me, so I guess I'm shit out of luck when it comes to this one._

He starts walking up the steps that lead to his porch and I just nonchalantly follow close behind him. My head is killing me and my palms are starting to sweat. I have a bad feeling about this. I just don't feel like I'm ready yet. I just found out that I have a boyfriend this afternoon at lunch and now I'm meeting his mother. I'm not even sure if I'm freaking out. I think I'm just a flat out mess. Alex pulls a key from his back pocket and unlocks the front door. I follow him inside the house and just look around. To my left, lying beside the door is a fat, lazy, white and brown bulldog that doesn't even budge until Alex nudges it with his foot. "You can take your shoes off here."

I nod and kick my boots off next to his door. The only thing in the room besides us and the dog is a flight of fairly steep steps. I slip my hands in my pocket and wait around to see what he's gonna do next. Obviously there's no other option besides to walk up the steps but I don't want to get ahead of myself. "What's your dog's name?" I look down at the lazy thing lying on the rug and imagine if it's a boy or a girl. I'm guessing it's a boy.

"Killer." He starts climbing up the steps and I, in turn, follow after him. The first thing I notice about somebody's house is the smell of it. His house is sweet-smelling and very homely. It smells like a fruity candle's been burning for years in it. On my way up the steps, I notice cute little school pictures of Alex, another boy and a little girl lining the walls. When we get to the top of the steps, there are lots of lights on as opposed to the dark downstairs. _This must be the main floor. His house is cool. I'm not sure how they carry groceries up that flight of steps without getting tired, but I think that's really neat how that's the first thing you have to do is go up the steps to get into the house. _

"Ally, is that you?" A soft, woman's voice calls out from what I think is the living room. The flight of steps we just climbed spits us out into a dining room with red walls and black furniture and the living room is to the right. Out loud, I chortle softly at the "Ally" remark. I cover my mouth and prevent myself from full-out laughing.

"Shut up, Josephine." Alex whispers to me which shuts me up quick. _What's worse? Ally or Josephine? I'm thinking Josephine is pretty bad but Ally is just terrible, especially for a boy. _"Yeah ma, it's me."

"Did your friend come with you?" She calls out once again.

"Yeah." Alex grabs my hand and pulls me towards the living room. His mom is sitting on one corner of the couch reading a book with a white cover while a little girl lies asleep in her lap. On the loveseat sits a little boy with his face stuck in an iPad while cartoons play on the television set. His mom is freakishly pretty. She has shoulder-length blonde hair, pale white skin and a petite figure. Alex clears his throat and rocks back and forth on his feet. "Mom, Jo. Jo, mom. Jo, Aaron, Aaron, Jo. That's Amber on the couch." He introduces us like it's really not that big of a deal that we're meeting each other.

His mom looks up from her book and gives me a warm smile. "Hi sweetie. I'm Alex's mom… it's nice to meet you."

I feel myself shrink until I finally feel three feet tall. _Open your damn mouth. _"Nice to meet you too." I wipe my sweaty palms on the seat of my jeans and take a deep breath as my headache deepens. I think Alex knows that I'm nervous because he puts his hand on my back in a supportive gesture.

"We're just gonna be in my room watching TV if you need me." Hurriedly, he softly pushes me towards a long hallway.

"Okay, but make sure you put your uniform in the dirty clothes hamper please. I'll wash it tomorrow for you." His mom is so cute… I can't take it. _I wish I had a mom that acted that adorable._

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." He keeps pushing me down the hall until we make it to a door that's painted black with a poster of the Seattle Seahawks hanging on the outside. "It's a mess in here but it's the only place that we'll be left alone." He opens up the door and lets me inside. It's really not all that messy in here. There's a pile of clothes strung from one end of the room to the other but that's really it. His bed is neatly made, the floor is clean aside from the clothes and the only messy thing about it is the pile of blankets on a mini couch that sits up against the wall. I guess he has a mini couch because his bed and his TV are on two total opposite ends of the room and there's no way he'd be able to see his TV if he were lying in his bed. The couch sits in front of the TV. "Just excuse the mess."

"…It's not that messy in here. My room's worse." I nervously sit down on his bed and grit my teeth though this unrelenting headache. "Your mom seems really nice…"

"She's alright. A little bit naggy, but she's alright." He busily kicks all the clothes into one giant pile in the corner of his room and sits next to me. "I haven't put my clean clothes away yet, that's all these clothes are."

"She doesn't seem naggy to me…"

"Trust me, she's naggy." He tiredly runs his hand through his own hair and sighs. "So do you want to watch something on TV?"

Well I don't really want him to feel like he has to compromise his life just because I'm here. I don't think that'd be very fair. I clear my throat and cross my legs. "…What would you be doing if I weren't here?"

"Playing Call of Duty."

"So… just do that." I shrug. "I'll just watch."

"I told you that I don't like to be bothered while I'm playing video games. Why would I play a video game while you're here? I brought you here to spend time with you, not ignore you."

"I won't bother you. I watch Shane play Call of Duty all the time and I kind of like it." I stand up from his bed and walk over to the mini couch. "Do you like… sleep on this thing instead of your bed?" I sit down on the far end of the couch and cross my legs again.

"Yeah, sometimes." He turns his TV on and hooks up his game system. "Before I forget to ask, do you like haunted houses?"

"I've only been to one and it wasn't that bad… why?"

"The DemonHouse opens up tomorrow night and a bunch of us were talking about going. You gotta be sixteen to get in, so…"

"Oh… um… Yeah. Yeah, I like haunted houses." _I went to a haunted house with Shane once. It was actually pretty lame. Shane was scared out of his mind but I didn't think it was that bad. The worst part was walking through the maze to get inside the house. I didn't really enjoy myself with Shane but maybe I'll enjoy myself with Alex. _"How much is it to get in there, and what time do you want to meet there?"

He lets out a rather quiet laugh and presses the "play" button on his Xbox. "You really are new to this whole dating thing." He loads his game and kicks his feet up on his couch. He's practically lying down at one end of it while I'm sitting at the other end. "I'm paying for you to get in and I'll pick you up. It's gonna be us, Mer and Der, Cristina and Owen and probably Jackson and Ape."

"…You don't have to pay for me, Alex…"

"What do you think boyfriends do for their girlfriends?" He mutters like he's uninterested as he just started to play his game.

"…Alright then." I rest my head in my hands and just watch him play. My headache still hasn't subsided and it's starting to make my stomach hurt. I use my two fingers to rub my temple and grit my teeth again. I guess I am a little bit new to this whole boyfriend-girlfriend thing. I just don't know why he insists on paying for everything. He's really sweet for it. I pinch the bridge of my nose quite hard and sigh. _Please go away, please. I'd like to enjoy myself with my boyfriend… _

"You okay down there?" He pauses his game and turns his head to me.

"I have a headache..." I sigh and keep pinching the bridge of my nose.

"…You wanna lay down? Or I can take you home… your choice."

"No, I'll be fine, just keep playing your game." _I definitely DON'T want to go home._

"You should lie down. Do you want like… an Aspirin or something?"

"I said I'm fine." I hold my head in my hand and close my eyes.

"Uh…" He puts his game controller down on the floor and scoots over on the couch as far as he can. "Here." He sighs, sounding like it's something he really doesn't wanna do.

"Here, what?" I grumble.

"Just lie down."

"Alex, I said I don't need to lie down. I'm fine, just play your damn game."

"I'm not gonna let you sit there with a headache while you're clearly uncomfortable. I said lie down."

"I'm OKAY."

"Lie down!" He grabs me by my arm and pulls me down towards his end of the couch. "See, this is why I don't like to cuddle with girls. They get all difficult and annoying every time you try to do something nice for them." I'm secretly reveling in the fact that he's letting me lay on him but in order to keep my cool, I just act like it's no big deal. I burrow my face in his chest and lie on his arm. "…Mention this to anyone and I'll kill you." He picks up his controller and resumes his game.

I bring my arms up and wrap them around his waist so that I'm comfortable and close my eyes while I'm lying in his arms. Behind my back, I feel the constant movement of his hands pressing the buttons on his controller. "…Is this the last time you're gonna let me cuddle with you?"

"Probably." He mumbles.

"Maybe I can turn you into a cuddler."

"Doubt it."

"Is this absolutely terrible? Cuddling with me?"

"Shh." He puts his chin against my head and I swear he kisses the top of my head for a minute. I could be wrong though. "…I guess cuddling isn't that bad. Just don't mention this to anyone."

"I won't."

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so before I get questions, YES, I know in the show, Alex's mom is crazy. Please remember that this is slightly AU so some aspects of the story aren't gonna completely add up. I just thought it would be interesting to see how it would be if Alex didn't come from a completely shitty household. But just know that some aspects of Alex's life (you'll find out soon) will remain true. Also, I have plans to introduce a couple more characters pretty soon, so you have that to look forward to. Just wait until you see exactly HOW i'm going to introduce the next couple characters, you'll probably cry about it. But uh... yeah. Thanks for reading!


	13. PrissyPrude

"Jo! Jo, get up! Hurry up, get up!" The first thing I hear is the screechy, annoying sound of Shane's voice followed by the hard clatter of his body diving down on my bed beside me. _Is he fucking serious? _"Waaake up, Jo!" As if yelling at me isn't enough, he puts his hands on my back and violently shakes me. "Come on, I have so much to tell you! Get up!" I zombiously reach over with my hand and grab my blue dolphin Pillow Pet and put it over my head. _I'm not ready to wake up yet. It's the weekend, he needs to go back home. _"NO, JO GET UP!" He pulls my blankets off my body, takes my Pillow Pet off my head and smacks me in the butt with it. "Josephine Leanne McKenna Wilson, get up!" _Oh, he's using my full name now. He even threw my confirmation name in there too. _"Come on… Come on, J. Please?"

"WHAT?!" I finally pick my head up off my pillow and glare at him. My hair fell out of the messy bun I put in it last night, my eyes are severely heavy, I think I feel the remnants of drool on my cheek and I'm really cranky. "IF I DON'T ANSWER YOU THE FIRST TIME WHAT MAKES YOU THINK I'M GONNA ANSWER YOU THE NEXT TEN THOUSAND?!" It's not the first time Shane's came over to wake me up on the weekends but this is the first time he's irritated me this badly. I usually end up thanking him for waking me up because if he doesn't, I won't get up until two in the afternoon. I probably won't thank him too much this time around. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"

"I have to tell you about my night!" He climbs over top of me to get to the free side of my bed and lies down on my pillow next to me. _I hope he's lying in my drool spot. _"Come on, look alive. It's eleven o'clock! I've been up since ten and I waited all the way until now to come tell you about it. I have so much to tell you about!"

"Please go fall in a hole." I pull my covers up to my neck and roll over onto my side. "Or go get hit by the ice cream truck, whichever comes first." I close my eyes again and try to ease myself back into falling asleep. I feel him reach across my body and he grabs onto something that I can't really feel. With one more movement, he gives my messy bun-turned-ponytail a hard yank. "YOU LITTLE SHIT."

"Come on, J! You gotta get up. You gotta let me tell you about my night."

"Start talking." I mumble and bury my face back inside my pillow. His night better have included him winning the freaking lottery because I could honestly kill him right now. I didn't fall asleep until two in the morning last night and I'm still really sleepy.

"Okay, so…" He hasn't even started his story and I can already tell he's gonna be talking for a while. "There are two parts. But I'll tell you the second part before I tell you the first part because the second part is the good news and the first part is the bad news. Okay?" I just nod my head and keep my face down inside my pillow. "So you know how you took me home last night before you went to Alex's? How you dropped me off then dropped the car off and went to Alex's?" I just nod again. "Well, when I got home, I called Leah to see if she wanted to come over so we could talk and spend some more time together. My mom was cool with it as long as she was gone by 12. So anyway, Leah came over and we were talking and stuff about school, the football game, our exes and all that stuff. Are you listening, J?" I give him another reassuring nod. "And one thing led to another and… I had sex with Leah last night."

_WHAT? _My head pops up from my pillow and I just look at him with squinted eyes. "You did WHAT with Leah?!"

"I told you to wake up for this one." The look on his face says it all. He's nothing short of satisfied and happy with himself. I'm glad he's pleased with his actions because I'm a little bit disgusted. He's been dating Leah for just as long as I've been "dating" Alex and he already had sex with her?! That tells me that Shane's a giant jerk and Leah's an easy whore. _Maybe you're just a little bit jealous here, Jo. You haven't been laid in two years and your boyfriend won't even hug you. Maybe you're jealous; don't be so quick to judge. _Shane puts his hands behind his head and smiles some more. "It was so crazy how it happened. We were just talking and we started kissing and then we just did it." He looks over at me. "It was good, too."

"You seriously screwed her last night? SERIOUSLY?" I'm honestly just shocked. I know Shane's been with lots of girls. Hell, he's been with enough for the both of us. I never did think that Shane was ugly but I never did see what all the other girls see in him. He must be packing below the belt or something because I don't think he's much special. "Do you know how stupid that was, Shane? Did you… did you at least wear a condom?"

"Nope." He shakes his head and continues to give me that goofy ass smile. "I pulled out though. And plus, she's on the pill. But it happened so fast that I didn't even have time to grab one."

"THEY'RE IN YOUR SOCK DRAWER, SHANE. ALL YOU HAD TO DO WAS REACH." I'm so upset with him right now I can't even think straight. "You're so stupid. You're so dumb. You barely even know her and you screwed her last night. Dude, you're thinking with your third leg. You're an ass."

"Come on, J. It's not like I called her over specifically for that." He starts pleading his case to me but there's honestly nothing he can say to me right now. I'm so mad at him. "We were just kissing and it just happened. It was all so quick. There wasn't any… foreplay or anything. It was like BAM, BAM. It was kissing then sex. Just like that. There wasn't even a transition thing. It was just like… from kissing to just full out doing it."

"Can't you just go a month without sex, though? It's not like you're a horny little teenaged boy that doesn't know where and WHEN to stick his thing inside something. You can easily control yourself when it comes to that. You could've at least dated her for a month before you slept with her."

"Jo, she was all over me! We were kissing and SHE started touching me! She was all over me and she WANTED it… so I just gave it to her. I couldn't say no to that!"

"You could've. You just didn't want to. You big jerk. I thought you were over that. I really did think you were done with having sex with every girl that you kiss. I thought you moved on from that."

"I don't have sex with every girl that I kiss, Jo. You're overreacting just a little."

"You do, Shane! As soon as a girl kisses you, you screw them! And don't even act like it's not true. Oral counts as sex too."

"I didn't have sex with you." He mumbles. "I don't know, you're overreacting J. It's not like I'm gonna break up with Leah now that I slept with her. I'm gonna stay with her because I really like her. It just happened. I don't think it should matter when I did it because it was gonna happen anyway. If you told me that you banged Alex last night, I wouldn't judge you for it. It's your body and it's your decision." I just shake my head and roll my eyes at him, which makes him throw his hands up in frustration. "Oh, I forgot, you don't have sex, Miss Priss." Now he's just making fun of me and I don't appreciate it in the least. "I forgot that I'm talking to little miss 'I don't get into any trouble'. It slipped my mind that you think sex is overrated, you think sex is gross and you don't even let guys get to first base with you."

"That is NOT fair, Shane. First of all, I'm NOT prissy. Just because I don't put out like a slut doesn't mean I'm stuck up and a prissy little bitch. It just means I have more respect for myself than sleeping with a guy I just got together with. I'm sorry, but I have standards, unlike your girlfriend."

"You've been doing a good job on the hypocrisy lately, Jojo." He gives me a very sarcastic thumbs-up. "Can you even remember the guy's name?"

"What guy?!"

"The guy you met, kissed and had sex with the same day. Do you remember his name? Or does that not apply to you, Miss Priss?"

"YOU DON'T GET TO USE THAT AGAINST ME. It was ONE time, you do it ALL the time."

"It's still the same thing! You didn't exactly make him take you out to dinner. You're… you're not as above me as you think you are, Jo. Period."

"I never said that! I never said I was above you… I never even said I was above Leah! I just said that I wouldn't choose to have sex with a guy I hardly knew. That's all."

"BUT YOU DID, JO! YOU DID!"

"ONE FUCKING TIME."

"It still counts. If you count it as losing your virginity, then it counts as actual sex. You're not as dainty, ladylike and goody-two-shoes as you think. And just because Leah's not a prude like you, doesn't mean that she's a whore. It just means that she's not a prissy little bitch that tries to act like she's better than everyone just because she only had sex once."

"…Why don't you just tell me how you really feel about me, Shane? Just tell me how you REALLY feel." I roll my eyes at him. "I never fucking said that I'm above anyone, and I know I'm NOT. I'm not prude, I just don't think it's cute to go around having casual sex with everyone that'll jump in the bed with you. I don't even know why you're making it such a big deal. It's okay for you to keep bringing up my ONE time mistake, but the second I talk about your MANY, we have to fight?"

"You wanna talk about mistakes, Jo? Okay, let's talk." He folds his hands and clears his throat. "Here's one. YOU. ARE. A. BITCH. Just like everybody thinks you are. You think that just because you're super smart and a little geek that you're just head and shoulders above everyone. You think you're oh so mature for a freshman that everybody should bow down to you. You try to act like you're all unique and rebellious when in reality, you're nothing more than a lonely little girl that WISHES she was as cool as everyone around her. Here's a dose of reality for you; you HAD SEX WITH SOMEONE YOU JUST MET. You didn't even know his name! I DARED you to kiss him, you DID, you LET him take you back behind a damn pool shed and have SEX with you. You make mistakes too, Princess."

"…Oh fuck you, Shane. Really. Fuck you. If that's really how you feel about me, then get the hell out of my room. Get out of my bed, get out of my room, get out of my house, get out of my LIFE. I thought I could trust you but now you're acting like an asshole. You don't think I know all my mistakes? I DON'T THINK I'M BETTER THAN ANYONE AND I'M NOT PRISSY." _I can't believe he really just said all of that to me. I wonder how long he's thought all of that about me. _"I'm not… I'm not even suggesting that I'm better than anybody. And if you think that… if you think that I'm that stuck up, then the last thirteen years of being your friend are complete bullshit. You don't know me at all."

"Now you're going to turn all this back around on me; classic Jo move." He rolls his eyes at me and sighs. "If you don't think that you're a little bit stuck up, then you don't know yourself."

"Has it ever occurred to you that maybe… just MAYBE I know myself better than you do? You're a real asshole, Shane. I tell you things… and I tell you things out of CONFIDENCE. I don't expect you to go back and mock me for things I tell you. You can go to hell for saying all of that. You're a real ass, and I'm really starting to hate you. I'm starting to hate being around you." I blink my eyes just once and tears stream down my cheeks and drop onto my pillow.

"…Look, J. I really didn't mean that. I didn't mean to call you a bitch and stuff, you just piss me off sometimes. You're basically judging me for having sex with Leah, and I don't think it's fair that you're doing that to me. You're telling me not to judge you because I'm your best friend, but in the same breath, you're calling me an idiot and a man-whore. How do you think that makes me feel to know that my best friend thinks I'm a jerk? I'm just saying… you were kind of being a prissy bitch by slut shaming Leah and calling me a jerk. And I really do feel like sometimes you think you're above me just because you have one body and I have like ten."

"Well that's not what I was saying at all." I sniff and wipe my eyes. "I was just saying that you made a jerk move. You really did, Shane. If you have as much respect for Leah as you say you do, you wouldn't have slept with her last night. It's just not cool, because if you and Leah have a bad breakup then she's just gonna go around to all her friends and tell them that you're a jerk because you sleep with girls at the drop of a hat." I bite my lip just as more tears come spilling out. "And you think I think I'm better than you when in reality… I'm jealous of you." I shrug.

"…Why are you jealous of me?" He looks at me like I just said the stupidest thing he's ever heard. "You take all advanced classes, you make the honor roll every nine weeks, you're on the gifted team, you're so… grown up for your age. Why would you have any reason to be jealous of me?"

"Why do you think, Shane?" I wipe my face with the backs of my hands again and sigh. _I'm so sick of everybody thinking that just because I'm smart, I'm mature and I'm in the honors classes that I'm automatically happy with who I am. Everybody just assumes that I'm perfectly fine when I'm not. I'm actually dying inside most of the time. _"What I would give to just… be like you for one day. I would love to have boys drooling all over me, jumping in lines to sleep with me. You think it's all because I don't… want to have sex? Shane, nobody wants to lie down in bed with me. I'm… not anybody's first choice. I would love to be like you, just for one day. ONE day."

"…But you kinda got your wish though. Haven't you heard some of the crap that's being said about you? You're a hot commodity right now. You're hotter than any other freshman, so I've heard lately."

"…I know all of that. But I can't help but think it's because I'm dating Alex. You and I both know that NOBODY looked my way when I was just…me. Now that I'm dating Alex, everyone wants to jump my bones. I just wish it were… honest, y'know? I wish people actually thought I was hot and not just because I'm dating a senior."

"…It's not that they don't think you're actually hot, Jo. It's just… they didn't really notice you until you stood you. It's how it always is. I'm having that problem with Leah right now. I mean, Leah's always been the hottest cheerleader, but it seems like ever since we became a thing, more and more guys have noticed her. They really do think you're hot, they just didn't notice you until they had a reason to. It's like… it's like when you buy a car. You buy the car and all of a sudden, you start seeing that car EVERYWHERE but until you bought it, you never saw that car anywhere. Boys just have a reason to notice you now."

"Oh." I look down at my hands and fold them in my lap. "…I'm sorry for flipping out on you for having sex with Leah. I don't think you're a jerk… I don't think she's a whore either. I was just upset… and maybe a little bit jealous that you actually got laid last night when I could hardly even get kissed. I'm sorry."

Shane leans over and gives me an honest hug. "I don't think you're prissy and I don't think you're a bitch. I was just mad at you for calling me a jerk and calling my girlfriend a whore. I really don't think you're a bitch. You're my best friend in the entire world, I don't actually feel that way about you." He rubs my back in the hug and squeezes me tight. "…But are you serious about that? Alex didn't even kiss you?"

"Nope." I shake my head and pull out of the hug. "He doesn't really like PDA, and he's not really a lovey-dovey kind of guy. He wouldn't even kiss me. But I think he really likes me, because he made it CLEAR last night that he doesn't ever want to cuddle with me because he's not really a cuddler, but he let me lie on his chest for an hour just because I had a headache. He let me lie on his chest while he played Call of Duty. If he doesn't let other girls do that, and he let me do that, I should feel special right?" All of a sudden, I start smiling so wide it's unreal. "Plus, he kept playing with my hair and he said he NEVER does that…. I'm special."

"You're a little weirdo, but yeah. You're special, Jojo." Shane playfully tugs on my hair again which makes me laugh a little. "Did you enjoy yourself though? Even though you had a headache?"

"Yeah, I was fine. I originally thought that I had a headache because I was just nervous because I met his mom, but I came home to bullshit last night which totally explained the headache and the stomachache."

"Bullshit?"

"…Lady bullshit."

"…Is your aunt in town?"

"Yep."

"Gross."

* * *

Arguing with Shane really does take a lot of energy out of me. We're just both two strong personalities and when we clash, it's BAD. I know deep down within that he didn't mean anything he said to me. Shane's a lot like me when he gets mad. When he's pissed, he says whatever's in his head and whatever comes out just comes out. I've been around Shane far too long to even consider taking offense to anything he says while we're arguing. I have to admit that some of the things he said are sort of sticking with me, but I'm trying really hard to just let them go. Like I can't help but wonder if he truly does think I'm a prissy bitch. He obviously thinks that I think I'm above him which is totally not true. I don't think I'm above anyone and that's the god-honest truth. He must really like Leah to defend her like that to me, though. If there's one thing I gathered from that argument, it would have to be that he actually likes Leah.

**Sat, Oct 18, 2013**

**2:22 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **hey text me when u r ready to leave

**Me: **wait, what time should i get ready? you never told me what time we were leaving last night.

**Alex: **damn I didn't? um just b ready by 3:00 if u can.

**Me: **okay. what time are we meeting the others?

**Alex: **5:30.

**Me: **3:00 is pretty early then, don't you think?

**Alex: **we r going 2 get something 2 eat b4 we go there

**Me: **dude you really gotta start telling me these things :/

**Alex: **srry. just b ready by 3:00. i'll b there 2 get you by 3.

**Me: **okayy.

I put my cell phone back on the charger and start immediately whirling around my room to find something to wear. I really wish he would've told me that we were leaving at 3:00. I would've BEEN in the shower, I would've BEEN had my outfit picked out, I would have BEEN started on my hair and makeup and I would have BEEN dosed myself up with Midol or Pamprin. _Geez, Alex._ I stand in the doorway of my closet, just staring at the things I could wear. Jeans are a no. I'm NOT squeezing my bloated ass in a pair of jeans with cramps as bad as the ones I have. Sweatpants sound heavenly but I'm not going to wear sweatpants on my second date. _YOGAS. YOGAS, JO. YOGAS. _"Hell yes…" I say out loud when I see that my favorite pair of yoga pants are clean and hanging up in the back of my closet.

Alright, so now I have another dilemma. _If I wear yoga pants, I have to wear a thong. A tampon and a thong doesn't sound like the most comfortable thing right now. Why do I have to be a girl? Better yet, why do I have to be a girl THIS week? _I yank the pair of yoga pants off the hanger and throw them on my bed. I might just have to suck it up and wear the thong and the tampon and just be extra, extra careful. Okay, now on to the shirts. I yank the most comfortable yet nicest thing I own down off a hanger and throw it on my bed too. Now off to the shower I go.

**x x x**

I've never been so uncomfortable in my entire life. First of all, this thong SUCKS. Second of all, I feel disgusting and huge in these yoga pants. I'm all gross and bloated and I feel like a whale. Third of all, I just really don't want to have a bra on right now. While I was finishing getting ready, I literally had to hide my phone under my pillow so I wouldn't look at it and feel tempted to text Alex and just tell him that I'm not going anymore. I'm pretty sure I took an illegal dosage of Midol to help with my cramps so I'm just going to wait for that to kick in and hope to god that I don't commit suicide before then. I sit down in front of my vanity and do some last minute makeup touchups. _You're going to have fun, despite the fact that you feel like hell. _

I mean, despite the fact that I feel like my body is rejecting my every organ, I look really nice. The black yoga pants look nice against the mint green, oversized knit sweater I put on. The fact that the sweater has the word "PINK" across it in white letters only made me put on a pair of white sneakers. I was going to wear my boots but I might have to run from some type of bloody zombie monster tonight so sneakers sounded a little bit better. The only thing I'm not happy with is my hair because the mist and moisture in the air while I was taking a shower turned it wavy and I don't have the time nor the patience to straighten it, so I just threw it up in a wavy ponytail and said screw it.

I grab my cell phone, my purse, turn off my bedroom lights and shut my door behind myself. Before I go downstairs, I walk down the hallway to my gram's room to tell her that I'm leaving. "Grammy, I'm leaving now. I'll be home later, before 1:00. If you need me, just text me or call me." I lean against her doorframe and wait for her to give me her blessing to leave. I told her this morning that I had plans and she was okay with it but I still want to make sure she's alright. She's lying in her bed watching NCIS like she's been doing all week. She's been feeling a lot better since she's been taking the medicine the doctor gave her but she's still been tired.

"I might be asleep by the time you get home, baby. I'll put the key on the porch, underneath the angel for you. You have fun with your friends and stay outta trouble." Once NCIS goes to a commercial, she actually takes her eyes off the TV and looks at me. As soon as she finishes her sentence, I turn out of her doorway to leave. "WAIT, JOSEPHINE." She yells after me. _I swear I didn't do anything. The only time she uses my full name is when I've done something wrong. Shit, maybe she's pissed because I didn't wash the dishes this morning like I was supposed to. _I slowly appear back in her doorway with not a word spoken. I'm probably in trouble and when I am, it's best if I don't say anything. I just respectfully look her in her eyes, but I find that her eyes aren't on my face. They're on my waist. _Oh…. shit. _I don't even have a lie to make up for this one. "Lift up your shirt for me really quick." Her tone is rather calm, which is bad news for me.

"Why?" I try real hard to just play it off but I don't think I can. _I'm dead. I'm deader than dead. I'm in the casket, six feet under. _

"Because I said so. Lift up your shirt for me, please." She picks up the remote and pauses the DVR player.

"No." I keep the tone of my voice steady, trying not to show any weakness because if I do, then I'm just admitting my guilt. "I'm not just gonna lift up my shirt for you, that's weird…"

"Jo, if I have to get out of my bed and physically take your shirt off your body, you know I will." She sits up in her bed as a threat. "Lift it up."

"I'm not gonna lift up my shirt, that's weird. Just ask me what you want to know." _If you don't lift up your shirt, I think you'd better start writing your will. She's gonna kill you. _

"1…2…."

"What do you want to know?! I'm not lifting up my shirt!"

"Lift. Up. Your. Shirt." I roll my eyes hard and just lift it up a little for her to see what I know she wanted to see. Grammy hasn't spanked me since I was like thirteen or so, so I'm not really scared that she's gonna hit me. I'm just scared that she's going to ground me until further notice. "…When'd you get that, Jo? Hmm? What's that?"

"…It's a bellybutton ring." I mumble.

"What'd you say? I didn't hear what you said."

"It's a belly. button. ring." I say in my normal voice.

"That's what I thought it was…" She lies back down in her bed and presses play on the DVR. "Take it out and leave it on my dresser."

"If I take it out, it'll get infected!"

"Oh, well that's just too bad. Take it out before you leave my house."

"Grammy, no. Please let me leave it in. I like it and it hurt really bad and I don't want to feel like I did it for no reason. Please can I just keep it? Please?"

"Take it out, Josephine."

"WHY?!"

"Because you ask me before you go and put a HOLE in your body, that's why! You're sixteen years old, you aren't grown yet!"

"You never let me do anything! If I would've asked, you would've told me no. Grammy, I don't do anything! I do whatever you ask of me, whenever you ask me to do it. I'm a good kid… I just wanted a piercing that I knew you'd say no to. Let me keep it… please?"

"If I have to tell you to take it out one more time…."

"Oh my freaking god!" I reach down and unscrew the ball on top of my belly ring. "You're not my freaking mother, you don't get to tell me what to freaking do!" Despite how bad it hurts, I yank the belly ring out and slam it down on her dresser. _Jo, did you really just say that? Did you seriously just say that to grammy?_

"No, I'm NOT your mother! You ought to be glad I'm not your mother, either! Are you sure you really want to say that to me right now? Are you sure you meant that?" She looks at me with nothing put anger in her eyes. I can tell I really hurt her feelings. "Maybe I should've just left you with your mother! You'd probably be dead right now, sitting in a ground rotting to your core, but that's fine because you wouldn't be with me, right? Because being with your mother would be so much better than being with me, wouldn't it? You're right. I'm not your mother… but I've tried damn hard to make sure I'm better than that!" I really feel like shit for saying that to her. I need to learn to bite my damn tongue. "You know what? Take the bellybutton ring. Take it, put it back in and leave. I can't even look at you right now. Get out of my sight, Jo. Get outta here."

"Grammy, I'm sorry. I…"

"I said get out. I'll talk to you about this later. Right now, you need to leave the house."

"I'm really sorry, grammy. I didn't mean to… I…" I sigh. "I love you…"

"I love you too, Josephine. But I want you to leave me alone right now."

* * *

"So are you gonna tell me why you're in such a bad mood or are you just gonna sit there in a bad mood?" Alex slides the small basket of mozzarella sticks across the table at me in hopes of getting me to take one. I can't even eat right now, I feel so bad. I feel like I literally just shot my grandmother dead. I'd like to believe that I only said that to her because I'm irritable and on my monthly, but I still don't think that's no excuse. I don't want to talk about what I just did. I feel so bad about it. "I don't give the best advice but I listen pretty well." He tries again. I slide down on my side of the booth and just sigh.

I thought for sure we were going to end up at a restaurant with three other couples so when I found out that it was just going to be me and Alex, I was very relieved. I'm glad I only have to deal with feeling this terribly around him and not a bunch of other people. I respectfully push the basket of our appetizers away from me and just sit there. _Again, I'm having another dilemma. I can tell him what I said to my gram and he'll probably think I'm a disrespectful bitch. But I can sit here and silence and risk him thinking that I don't want to be here. _"I just said something really out of line to my grandmother before I left. I'm just thinking of ways to apologize for it."

He breaks open a cheese stick and dips it in marinara sauce. "Whatever you said to your gram, I'm sure she'll forgive you for it. There's really no sense in beating yourself up about something you can't take back." He shovels the cheese stick in his mouth and chews on it. "What was it that you said?"

_Just tell him. He's your boyfriend, he's not a stranger. _"…She saw my belly piercing, and she wanted me to take it out. And I snapped and told her that she's not my mom, so she can't tell me what to do. And I've never said that to my gram before… and I could tell I hurt her feelings." I fling my messy ponytail over my shoulder and rest my chin in the palm of my hand. "I feel bad for it… and I need to find a way to apologize."

"…That's all?" He doesn't seem too amused by it.

"…Yeah. I don't know; I've just been in a crappy mood all day. I would never just say that to her to blatantly hurt her feelings. I was pissy so I just said it. And now I feel like crap." I sigh again and finally pick up a mozzarella stick. "I literally woke up in a bad mood today and I'm not even feeling well, to top all of this off."

"…How the hell do you wake up in a bad mood? Something had to have put you in a bad mood… you don't just wake up pissed off."

"Believe me, when you're a girl, it happens." I take a small bite of my cheese stick and chew it slowly. "I woke up completely shitty this morning."

"Women are so moody." He sits back in his side of the booth and crosses his hands. "Are you still not feeling well? 'Cause we can stop at the CVS on our way to the DemonHouse and grab some medicine or somethin'."

"It's not exactly something that medicine can fix." I wipe my hands on a napkin and lick my lips. "And it's not something I'm particularly comfortable talking to you about."

"Awww…." He nods as if I just gave myself away. I guess I probably did give myself away. Either that or he's just really sensitive to women and their many issues. "Is someone riding the crimson tide?"

"Ew, Alex… stop."

"Look, listen. I know all about those things… whether you're wearing the red badge of courage, riding the crimson tide, working the cotton cowboy… whatever you wanna call it. I get it. I get when it's that time of the month. Not your fault somebody's poisoned the water hole."

I cover my mouth as I laugh, hard. "You're an idiot." _He's got so many ways to dance around the fact that it is what it is and I think I like it. _"…I don't really want to talk about my… semicolon."

"…We can just call it an exclamation point, if that makes you feel better. All you've gotta say is exclamation point and I'll know what you're saying. You know… if calling it that instead of a period is better for you." I cringe at that word. I just really don't want to talk about that right now.

"Can we just stop talking about the happenings of… woman parts and stuff. It kind of grosses me out…"

"If I'm not grossed out by it, why are you?"

"Because I think… va-jay-jays are weird." I shudder. "New conversation, please."

"Before we change the conversation, I have one question to ask you about… va-jay-jays." He puts air-quotes around the word.

"…Whatever, make it quick."

"You're a virgin, aren't you? That's why things are awkward for you."

"Alex!" My eyes grow about ten sizes bigger and my jaw drops. "…I mean… really? Do I have to answer that?"

"I think it's a pretty legit question." He shrugs. "I think I deserve to know."

"Does it make a difference if I am?"

"Well, yeah, it kinda does. It lets me know if I can try anything or not…" He nods his head and looks at me with a smirk. "It won't make me like you any more or less. It doesn't matter to me. I just think it's a pretty logical question seeing as we're dating now…"

"…No, I'm not." I spit that out rather quickly and look around. "Haven't been one since I was fourteen. Can we NOT talk about this?"

"…I didn't think you were. You're too hot to have been one."

"…You're such a jerk."

"And you're a prude." He winks at me to let me know he's joking. I don't know, I find sex talk really awkward but for some reason, when I'm talking about it with him, it's not that bad. It's actually pretty funny.

"I'm not a prude. I just don't like to talk about sex…and…" I sigh. "I'm just not a prude, okay?"

"I think you are a little bit of a prude. Just a little bit though."

"I'm not!"

"Then tell me three turn ons and three turn offs without blushing."

"…Okay." I bite my lip to stop myself from smiling. "Turn offs… stinky breath, boys who smell bad and dirty fingernails. It's not that hard to brush your teeth, take a shower and clean your fingernails." I keep my face as serious as I can. "Turn ons… nice smiles, a sense of humor…and cuddling. I like boys who aren't afraid to smile, have a good sense of humor and will let me cuddle with them." I fling my ponytail to the side again. "So your turn."

Still smiling at me, he leans forward and rests his hands on the table. "I don't like girls who are prudes, girls who flaunt their bodies around and girls that act like the sun shines out their asses. I do like girls that are clean, girls that are good kissers and girls that who they're hot without flaunting it."

"…So one out of three for me isn't bad."

"You're two for three. Clean and hot without flaunting it." I can't help but blush at the fact that he thinks I'm hot. "…So prudy… tell me three turn on… spots without blushing. Go."

"Oh god." I close my eyes and put my hands over my face.

"You're blushing! See, I told you you're a prude."

"I'm not!" I try my hardest to stop smiling but I really can't. "Okay, I…" I'm blushing so badly right now. "I can't do it. I can't do it." _I just feel so silly telling him about what…turns me on. That's just so awkward and weird and just… ugh. _"…I can't do this." I know my face is bright red. "…I have to think about it, okay? While I'm thinking, you tell me… describe to me what your last crush looked like." _Come on, Jo. You can tell him what turns you on, can't you? You're not a prude… are you? I think I am._

"My last crush, hmmm…" He sits back, laughing at me for blushing so badly. "…My last crush was… she was hot. Shorter than me but sort of tall for other girls, skinny with a pretty thick waist and thick thighs, big jugs…"

"How big were her boobs?" I like hearing what I beat out to get him. It makes me feel more confident.

"…Pretty big. I never saw her naked so I can't really say for sure."

"Okay, continue."

"Hmmm…" He twiddles his thumbs slowly. "Big butt… BIG butt… long legs and pretty long hair. Green eyes, I think… brunette hair. My favorite thing about her would probably be… the little beauty mark she has on her cheek, right by her mouth. She has a really pretty smile, especially when she's blushing. She's… she's kinda beautiful, actually. Like… she's more than just a pretty face and a hot body."

"Was she a good kisser?" I'm pretty sure I know who he's talking about but I want to string it along for a little while longer.

"Don't know… probably though. Her lips look like they'd be soft. If I could get her to stop being so shy around me, I'd probably be able to find out…"

"…I think she'd be okay with letting you find out though…" _He wants you to stop being shy… stop being shy. And for god's sake, STOP blushing! _If I don't do it now, I'll never do it. So with the little bit of courage I have inside me at the moment, I stand up a little and lean across the table to kiss him. His eyes close and so do mine. I tilt my head to the left, he tilts his to the right. Our lips just… touch. I feel like I'm going to explode into a million pieces. And guess what?

I'm blushing.


	14. Baby Steps

"Are you scared yet?" April leans forward from her place in the line to ask me the same question for the third time. It seems like every ten minutes, she asks me and my answer is always the same. I'm not scared of a haunted house and no matter how many times she asks me, no matter how much time she waits between times to ask me, I will never be afraid of a haunted house. Things like this don't really scare me. I just get the concept that they're people in masks and costume makeup that get paid to try and scare me. The only thing that would truly scare me is if this were a true haunted house. Like, put me in a place where people actually lived before. Stick me in a house where some guy went rampant and killed all his family members. That'd scare the shit out of me and I'd probably love it. "I remember my first time coming here when I turned sixteen. I slept with the lights on for a week." She leans into Jackson's chest and gives him a super tight hug. "Now it's just fun, because I've been here so many times."

"…So you guys already know what to expect." I lean back against a railing look towards the front of the line to see if it's moving yet. We're honestly not that far off from being let in the building. "What should I expect? Should I expect lots of fake blood and make believe zombies?"

Jackson slides his hands down April's back and onto her butt, where he stuffs his hands into her blue jean back pockets. "They change the story every year, so we're just as on edge as you are here." He puts his lips to the crown of April's head and gives her a light kiss before he continues talking to me. "Last year it was about a wedding that went wrong in the house, so everything was wedding themed; bloody bride, dead flower girl leading us through the house… real cutting edge stuff."

"Awesome." I jump up slightly, just enough to pull myself up so I can sit on the railing. Alex is standing behind me staring down at his cell phone. I just look down the line at everybody standing in front of us. Derek and Meredith are too busy sharing a box of popcorn with Cristina and Owen to even look our way. April and Jackson are obviously wrapped up in each other, then there's Alex, more interested in his phone than he is me. The line moves up by a few people and instead of getting down off the railing, I slide on my butt until I'm in the right spot. It's not chilly outside or anything, but I wish I had known that the queuing line was outdoors.

Some weird guy on stilts with a pumpkin shaped head starts stalking over towards us, presumably to scare some old woman that's standing in line in front of Meredith and Derek. It's nice how they send out people to entertain the crowd while we wait. It makes things go a little bit faster, seeing people get the crap scared out of them. I sigh, step down from my seat on the railing and walk over so that I'm closer to Alex. "Whatcha doing?" I have to raise up on my tiptoes in order to see his phone.

"Checking through Facebook." He mumbles, basically blowing me off. I'm starting to get used to him acting like I'm an annoying mosquito in public. I just live for the moments that he's really nice to me when we're alone. I reach up with my hand and pretend to fix his hair when in reality, I just want a fake excuse to touch him. He sort of flinches away from me when I touch his hair which makes me stop.

Again, I sigh and just stand at a decent distance away from him. I cross my arms across my chest and rock back and forth on my feet. I find myself staring at the other couples whenever I get bored with what Alex does (or doesn't do) to me. Owen casually has his arms around Cristina's waist while she and Meredith talk and Derek's demeanor mirrors Owen's. I don't even bother to look at Jackson and April because I'm just about sure they're kissing each other by now. _People probably think we're brother and sister with how far apart we're standing from one another. _Out of boredom, I lean back against the railing again and stretch out. _At least he's nice to you behind closed doors, I guess. _

The line moves up by a few people again and I follow behind it. We're close enough to the actual house now that I can kind of see inside of it. It looks like it's pitch black which isn't something I'm too thrilled about. I wasn't expecting to have to feel my way through complete darkness. I don't think we're exactly next in line, but we're probably only about two groups away from being let in. With us being so close to where they check tickets and take admittance, I can hear the music playing from the speakers attached to the house. The creepy Michael Myers song is playing.

"Nervous?" Alex tosses his phone into his pants pocket and finally gives me some type of communication. I shake my head and look down at the ground. _Maybe I'm being needy, but I just wish he'd talk to me more. I wish he'd hold my hand and stuff too. I don't know much about boyfriends but I don't think boyfriends act like this. I wish he'd treat me just a little bit like Jackson treats April. _"Good. You shouldn't be nervous. It's not that scary. Just don't lose me in there. Stay close."

"…How would I lose you?" When I raise my head to look at him, my ponytail flings to the back of my head and tickles the middle of my back. I reach back and swat it away. "We're just walking through the house, right?"

"Yeah, but they make us walk in a single file line. Just stay in front of me, because it can get pretty dark." He reaches out and grabs onto the part of my hair that I swatted away from tickling my back. "I can just hold onto your ponytail the whole time." I pull my head away so my hair falls out of his hands. _You don't have to touch me. It'd be nice, but I get that you don't like to. _He wrinkles his eyebrows at me and his mouth turns down into a grimace. "…You feeling alright?"

"I'm fine." I just turn around to face the front of the line and cross my arms over my chest. I just don't understand how he can be in the same boat as me and not care. I don't get how he's obviously sitting here watching the other couples—his FRIENDS hugging and actually showing affection towards one another but he won't even look at me for more than five minutes. I'm just finding it hard to believe that he's so easily unamused and un-phased by what everyone around us is doing. I feel his hands inside my ponytail again which makes me snatch away, yet again. "Stoppit."

"Am I not allowed to touch your hair now?" He pulls his hands back and uses his eyes to apologize to me.

"…You don't have to touch me. I know you don't want to, so don't do it. You really don't have to." I roll my eyes up to the sky and turn back around to face him. "You know what… we… we don't have to do this." He raises one eyebrow, questioning what I mean. "We don't have to… be boyfriend and girlfriend. We can just be friends… if you're not really into this. I won't take it the wrong way. We can still hang out and stuff. It doesn't have to be a relationship."

He heaves a hard sigh and throws his head back to the sky. "I _told _you that I'm not like that, and it's really hard for me to change that. What's going to make you happy, Wilson? What's going to keep you from getting an attitude with me every time we're together?"

"…I'm just saying. I get it, and I like that about you. I get that you're not really into the hugging and stuff and I like that you don't change it just because of me. But I'm also saying that we don't have to pretend like… like this is more than what it is." I shrug. "I just feel a little out of place sometimes around your friends. They're all affectionate and then you treat me like I'm Typhoid Mary. It just makes me feel weird."

"So you feel like you're pretending?" He asks. My eyes widen just a little and I nod. "Well I'm not pretending. I'm not pretending to like you. That doesn't make sense."

"What doesn't make sense about it?"

"The fact that there's nothing in it for me." He seems like he's softening up a little bit. "If I were going to pretend to like you, something would have to be in it for me. I'd have to be pretending for a reason. You're not putting up, so what do I have to pretend for?" He grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him. "Can you give me a minute? I told you that I'm not like this, and I've never been like this. Give me some time, Wilson. I'll get it right."

"You can start by calling me by my name." I rest my hands on his waist and look up at the stubble on his face. "And then shaving."

He gives me a slight laugh and transitions into actually giving me a hug. "From now on, just tell me what you want. It's better than you getting mad for no reason." His hands move down to my lower back. "If you want a hug, just say so. If you want me to hold your hand, just say so. I'm not a mind reader and I'm not used to just automatically doing these things."

"Just… I don't know…" I let my hands wander all over his back, stroking over his muscles and his entire build. He still smells like Jesus. "If we're around your friends, and you see them hugging… it wouldn't hurt to hug me too. Just… take some hints until you're used to it. I'm your girlfriend, not your sister."

"…So you want me to treat you like Avery treats Kepner?" I give him a really energetic nod. He's starting to understand. "…So does this mean I get to touch your butt?" I slam my face down into his chest so he won't see me while I blush. "What? Jackson's touching April's butt and you said you want me to treat you like he treats her…" I clench my eyes shut tight and just blush harder.

"Shut. Up." I mumble into his chest with a smile across my face. _You really are a prude, Jo. All he said was something about touching your butt and you're a mess. _"No… you don't have to do all that." I'm still blushing so I continue to talk into his chest. "Not… now. That's just weird…"

"I really gotta break you out of your shell." He keeps his hands at the base of my back, right before my butt starts and just rubs. "I don't even think you're a prude, I just think you're shy."

"A little bit, yeah." I nod and still keep my head inside his chest.

"Unless you really don't want me to touch your butt. But it's just a butt. It's a nice butt, but it's a butt."

"Stoooooop." I whine at him. The more he talks about it, the more he's making me blush. _He's right though. It's just a butt, isn't it? _"It's not that I don't want you to I just… it's just weird!"

"So I'm never going to touch your butt because it's weird?"

"No… it's just… IT'S THE SECOND DATE!"

"That's not even what I'm implying and you know it's not." He puts his chin on the top of my head and keeps rubbing my lower back. "I'm not trying to put moves on you, Wil…Jo." He catches himself before he uses my last name and I appreciate the effort. "I'm just trying to get you to stop being so nervous around me. It's not just about the butt. It's about everything…" _I know, but… it's still weird. _"You're not comfortable around me and you should be. You should be okay to talk about your period with me." My cheeks get red again. Dammit. "You should be okay with the fact that I think you're hot. You gotta be yourself around me."

"I am myself…"

"Then stop talking into my chest and pick your head up then." I shake my head at that. "Exactly. We can't have any kind of relationship if you're uncomfortable with certain things."

"I'm just… I get… you make me nervous." I finally take my face out of his chest and look up at him. "I _do _think you're…" I close my eyes. "I do think you're sexy and stuff… but it's just not something I can just say out loud. I feel goofy…"

"And that's what I'm trying to stop. You shouldn't feel weird around me. I want you to be comfortable." Again, he touches my ponytail and looks directly into my eyes. "You're trying to teach me how to be a cuddler, and I'm trying to teach you how to stop being so shy."

"I can't just stop being shy though, Alex. Baby steps, okay?"

"Yep, baby steps. You're making me hug you right now, and this is my baby step. You need to take a baby step now."

"By letting you touch my butt?"

"I didn't say that…" He uses his thumb to move a piece of my hair out of my face. "Let me kiss you… and you're not allowed to blush when I do it."

"…I guess that's fair." Naturally, I pull away from him to give us some space and tilt my head to my left as he tilts his to the right. Just like we did at the restaurant, our lips touch and for some reason, it feels better now than it did at the restaurant. Aggressively, he pushes his lips harder into mine and the only thing I have left to do is part my lips a little. When I do that, he shoves his tongue in my mouth. _Don't blush… don't blush… No matter how much you want to, don't blush… _I might be a little bit of a prude, but I'm not a beginner when it comes to kissing boys. So I push back against him and deepen the kiss. Just as soon as I start actually getting into the kiss, he pulls away… but not away, away. His lips pull away from my lips, but they just skim their way down to my collarbone. _Oh… oh GOD. He really expects me not to blush!? _

I purse my lips together and do the only thing I really can even think about doing; I grab onto his head full of shaggy brown locks. I don't know, I guess he likes it when I grab his hair, because he doesn't stop kissing my neck. _Okay, okay, that's enough… _As much as I don't want him to stop, I find some kind of strength in myself to push him away. "…Alex… Alex…" My voice comes out in a tone just above a whisper. "That's enough…"

His hands are still on my lower back and I'm pressed so hard up against him that I can literally feel the muscles in his arms straining with how tight he's holding me. "Got a little carried away… sorry." I can tell by the tone of his voice that he's not too happy with himself. He probably thinks I hated it, which is NOT true.

"No… I…" In exchange for blushing, I close my eyes and bite my bottom lip. "…Re…Remember in the restaurant… you asked me to tell you three… three turn on spots?" I just nod my head. "That's one."

**x x x**

"How many?" The ticket lady is all cheerful and excited, which almost makes her heavily fake English accent tolerable. She's dressed in a skimpy fairy outfit with deep black, shoulder-length hair and eyes that are hauntingly, unnaturally green. She's definitely wearing contacts in her eyes but I must admit that I love her costume. It's the kind of thing I WISH I could pull off. Her corset is lacy and black, exposing every last bit of cleavage she has. She has on a black tutu with black fishnet stockings and black combat boots. Her makeup is very overdone, like she's a cartoon character. I just wish I had the body for something like that. Instead of spending my time staring at her though, I look around the building we're in. The walls are molded to look like the inside of a cave and there are fake spider webs everywhere. I'm still not scared as much as I am fascinated with the decorations in the ticket booth alone.

"Six." Owen hands her the pile of money he collected from everybody. When I looked at the admission prices on the sign hanging outside, it said that one ticket alone is $25 to get in this place. Since Alex is paying for me, that means he forked out 50 bucks for the two of us, plus the $60 bill he paid at the restaurant. I get that he's embracing the whole chivalry thing by paying for me, but I'm not gonna keep letting him pay for expensive things. I make a mental note in the back of my head to plan something for us to do that I'll pay for. Girls can pay for dates too, can't they?

Beside the ticket lady is a tall man with broad shoulders dressed in a black tuxedo and a black top hat. I'm not sure if the tux and the hat is his costume or not, but it seems pretty normal compared to the outfits the ticket ladies have on. The man reaches behind the ticket lady and grabs two things out of a large basket. He hands Owen ONE flashlight and a rope with six little ringlets in it. The ticket lady goes down the line and hands all of us a single orange ticket while he gets us situated with the flashlight and the rope. _One flashlight for SIX people? What the hell…_

"How old are you?" The man starts going down the line with his hand out, obviously asking for our IDs. I rummage through my purse for my license before he even gets to me. He goes down the line to Owen, then to Cristina, then to Meredith, then to Derek, then to April, then Jackson and finally, me. I hand him my license. He glances at it for a brief second before he hands it back. "Do not touch the actors, they WILL touch you…. at any time if you wish to be let out of the attraction, shut off your flashlight and we will have someone escort you out right away. No metal, no alcohol, no drugs. With your ticket is the admission to the attraction and the knowledge, as well as the permission, of actors to touch you, however, they will not injure you. You enter at your own risk." He runs through the rules and stuff like a robot. _Wait, I did NOT know they were going to touch me…what the hell am I even getting myself into? _ "There will be profanity, vulgar language and nobody under the age of sixteen is permitted to enter. Nobody with a history of seizures, heart problems, lung problems or concussion problems. No pregnant women." He unhooks the latch to the velvet rope that's holding us back and steps aside."Straight back through the double doors. Thank you for visiting The DemonHouse. Try not to scream too loud…" Owen's in front of the group and he grabs onto one ring on the rope. He passes the rope back to Cristina who passes it back to Meredith who passes it back to Derek who passes it back to April who passes it back to Jackson who passes it to me and I pass it to Alex. I grip my section of the rope tightly and start walking with the rest of the group through the double doors. I'm still not scared, I'm just a little bit worried.

"I didn't know they were going to touch me. I thought we were just going to walk through, get scared and be on our way." I turn my head back towards Alex and whisper as we start walking towards the double doors. "Is that even legal?"

"They don't hurt you. They get in your face, pull you towards them and just let you go. They usually pick one person in the group to pick on and it's usually Mer. The last three times we came here, it's been Mer. The most they've ever done to me was poked me in the shoulder with a fake knife. You'll be fine. They won't hurt you." He puts one hand on my shoulder and pushes me softly into walking a little faster.

Inside the double doors, we're thrust into a pitch black room. The only light coming from the room is in the corner. A lady is sitting in a rocking chair with a candle on her lap. She looks older, but I can't tell if she really is old or if it's the costume makeup that makes her look old. "Welcome, welcome, welcome." Her voice isn't scary or anything. It's perfectly normal. "Welcome to my humble abode. My name is Lady Adelaide Forsythe and yes, this is my house." She keeps rocking in that damn chair with the candle in her lap. _What did I get myself into? _ "In the year 1889, my husband, Sir George Forsythe had a vision to build me my dream house from the ground up. My husband and I both grew very, very old in this house where we resided until the time of both of our demises. Generation after generation of my family has inhabited this house… and they've never left. I welcome you into the house of my family… the resting place for all of us who have died here. You are welcome to check out every single room of my beautiful estate, and shall you make it back out, I will be waiting for you in my backyard. But I must warn you… the spirits do not like to be disturbed…." The woman blows out the candle and we're in the pitch black darkness.

"Turn on the flashlight, dude!" What sounds like Jackson barks at Owen, but it could have possibly been Derek too. I'm not sure which one. _If I close my eyes the whole time I'm in here, I'll be okay as long as I follow the movements of the group, right? What if something touches me? _

Owen turns on the flashlight and that's literally the only source of light we have. The same normally dressed man that equipped us with the rope and the flashlight is suddenly standing in front of us. I think he's going to guide us through the house. Being the leader of the group, Owen follows the guide and we all follow behind in his footsteps. I'm not scared… I'm not scared… "The kitchen of the Forsythe Estate is fully equipped with a built in butcher shop… this is where chef John spent most of his time… cleaving and cutting the very meat that he served every day to the members of the Forsythe family… legend has it that he never truly cooked the meat all the way through…" The guide briefs us on the room before we're fully inside it.

Following the guide, Owen leads us into a room that's pretty cold and equally smelly. It smells like real blood in here and it feels like Antarctica. I really don't want to look around but I can't help myself. My eyes are just wandering everywhere. Owen shines the flashlight all around the room and there's literal MEAT hanging on the walls. Maybe it's fake meat, but if it's fake, I can't tell. I glance over towards what looks like a bloody sink and look away quickly. I swear something just moved in the corner… "WHO'S HUNGRY?!" Some dude dressed in a butcher's outfit literally pops out of a freezer beside me, which obviously makes me jump.

"Jesus fucking…" I move away from the freezer and take a couple deep breaths. "Christ…"

"Thought you said you weren't scared…" Alex leans forward and whispers in my ear.

"He was right there next to me, of course I'm going to jump!" My legs shake just a little as I try to walk again. _This really might be the worst mistake of my life._

"Keep the line moving, folks!" The guide leads us out of the weird butcher freezer room and into what I assume is a living room. I swear there's literally something snarling right next to me. Or maybe it's next to April. Something's literally next to me or next to April or Jackson and I'm NOT having it.

"Alex, this isn't a good idea…" I whisper to him.

"Do you want out?" I feel his hand on my shoulder again.

"…No, I just… I swing when I get scared. It's a natural reaction. I don't scream, I swing off on people… so if I hit you, I'm so sorry." My eyes make their way towards a couch and I see a bunch of people sitting on it. None of them are moving but I feel someone pulling on the rope that we're all holding onto. "I should've gone pee before I came in here." I whisper to myself.

"Are you scared?" I think it's Alex whispering in my ear but the voice does not belong to him. I close my eyes and try hard to calm myself down. _They're actors… they're actors and this isn't real. _Whoever's in my ear touches my shoulder with cold, rough hands and squeezes it a little too tight for my liking. "Don't be scared, we only want to play…"

"…Oh…. my…." I literally rip my shoulder out of whoever's hands this is and jump back into Alex. "Hold my fucking hand. Hold my hand, I'm so serious. Hold my hand…"

He's literally laughing at me. "I told you it gets pretty intense, but it's okay. Keep walking. They'll only mess with you if they see that you're too scared to keep walking." He puts his free hand inside of mine and holds my hand tight. "Don't be scared."

"It touched me!"

In front of us, I hear April literally SCREAM the f-bomb. Whoever messed with me is messing with her now and I'm just glad they're not screwing with me. I have to pee so bad… I didn't have to pee before I came in here but I have to pee so bad now. I'm not sure where the guide went, but it seems like we're wandering through this house by ourselves now. I think we ended up in a baby nursery or something because I hear "Mary Had a Little Lamb" playing on a piano or something. I'm not sure who just screamed, but I'm placing my bet on Cristina.

"I'm not a screamer, but if something else touches me in this damn house…" I squeeze Alex's hand tighter as I see a rocking horse moving from the corner of my eye.

"Oh, you're not a screamer, huh?"

"You're sick." I swat him in the chest with an open hand and blush a little at that. I'm glad he can't see my face and the fact that I'm blushing. "That's not what the hell I meant."

"I like when you cuss. It's sexy." I blush some more when he says that, but the blushing doesn't last long because I literally JUMP out of my skin when something next to me starts crying. It's a fake baby cry but it's still kinda creepy. "Say more cusswords."

"Lemme alone." I mumble. I accidentally step on the back of Jackson's shoes and almost fall flat on my face. "…If I needed you to carry me through the rest of this house, would you do it?"

"You're freaking out too much, Jo. It's all in good fun."

"I don't like to be touched by strangers, alright?" Something…or someone tugs on my sweater and growls at me. _Don't look at it… don't look at it. _I can't help it. I turn my head and look down at whatever it is that's touching me and I immediately wish I hadn't. This guy with a bloody mouth, knotted hair and black eyes is pulling on me and looking at me like I'm a meal. Through the darkness, all I can see is him smiling at me and licking his lips at me.

"I like your shirt, Jo…" The bloody guy actually calls me by my NAME which just makes me even more crazy. I'm BEYOND scared. This place is really fucking with my head at this point. He knows my NAME. I literally can't move right now. I think I'm crying but I can't even blink to test that theory. "Can I borrow your shirt?" His hand touches my skin and just… NO.

"ALEX!" I can't help it, I just let go of the rope and seriously jump up on him. "It's touching me! I thought you said they only mess with one person, what the hell…" He's still touching my arm, even though I'm flipping out right now. Alex has his arm around me but he's too busy laughing at me to even do anything about it. "OH MY GOD, OH SHIT!" Like a ripple effect, right after I scream, April screams and Jackson laughs, Meredith screams and Derek laughs and both Owen and Cristina laugh at the rest of us. This isn't even funny anymore…

"You're gonna have to let go of me so I can walk…" Through his laughter, Alex tries to shake me off but I'm holding onto his shirt too tight. _Who am I kidding? This shit is scary as hell._

"At least she's not riding your back, Karev." Derek glances back at us with laughter in his voice. "They're not even messing with her as much as they usually do, and she's on my back." I guess he's talking about Meredith. _Oooh, that sounds nice. Maybe I should get on his back…_

"They're really messing with April this year." Jackson chimes in.

"Not as much as they're messing with hairball, obviously." Cristina is laughing almost as hard as Alex is. "I've heard her utter more swear words tonight than I've heard her say any normal words." _I would be cool if they wouldn't touch me… and if they didn't call me by my name._

* * *

"That was literally the scariest thing I've ever been through. I could've crapped my pants more than once." It took almost the whole ride home for me to calm down enough to actually realize how much fun that was. I had more fun than I've had in a very, very long time. But I probably won't sleep much tonight. "You could've warned me that the actors were allowed to touch us. I thought I was gonna have heart failure in there!"

"Why'd you think you have to be sixteen to get in? It wasn't that bad. Plus, I wanted to see what you're like when you're scared." He puts his car in park and shuts it off. "That was the funniest thing I've seen in a long time. I thought you were gonna break my hand with how hard you were grabbing it." When he turns the car off, we both open up our doors to get out. "What time do I have to take you home by?"

"I texted my grandma when we left The DemonHouse and she said she wants me home by 1:00 tonight. I guess she's not feeling well so 1:00 instead of 1:30. She likes to lock up earlier when she's not feeling well." I shut his car door and start walking towards his front porch. "But you can take me home at 12:30 instead. If she's not feeling well, I want her to go to bed earlier than 1:00."

"Is she the only person you live with?" He fumbles around with the keys on his keychain, looking for his house key.

"Yeah. It's just me and my gram." I clear my throat and lean against the bricks of his house. "I'm an only child. No brothers or sisters, just me and her."

"How'd your folks die?" He finally opens up his front door and we both step inside. It's freezing outside and it's so much warmer in here. Just like the first time I came to his house, his fat, lazy dog is lying by the steps and all the lights are out. "Car crash or something?"

"…They didn't." I take my shoes off by the door and fix my socks. "They're both still alive, I think."

"Oh, I'm sorry I just…" He kicks his shoes off too and just looks at me, clearly thinking of a way to apologize to me. "The way you talked about it just being you and your grandma, I assumed… yeah."

"It's okay." I wave my hand at him and shake my head to let him know it's okay. "It's just not exactly the first thing I tell people." _You could probably tell him though. Alex wouldn't judge… _"You know, when people hear that your mom left you at fire station when you were two weeks old, they usually just want to be your friend out of pity. So it's not really the first thing I say when I'm making friends."

"So your grandma is your dad's mom?"

"No, my mom's mom." I can tell that he's confused just by the look on his face. "…I'm only gonna tell this story once, so follow along… okay?" He nods. "I guess my mom was my age when she had me, maybe a few years older or something. Either way it goes, she was really young. She ran off to California with my dad, who happened to me in his thirties when she was a teenager. Anyway, they ran off to California together so my grandparents wouldn't put him jail for being with her. She got into drugs real bad in California and she got pregnant with me and I guess she left me at a fire station when I was a baby. They caught her on camera, threw her in jail and called my grandparents to come see if they would keep me. I lived in California until I was like two while the custody stuff was being sorted through. My dad's MIA and my mom's in either rehab or a halfway house, I don't know which one."

"…You never met her?"

I shake my head. "Nope. My gram's always kept me away from her. She loves my mom, which is understandable because she's still her child. She sends my mom money every other month. I caught her sending my mom a picture of me when I was eight. …She writes me letters, too. My gram hides them away in her dresser but I used to read through them while she was at work. She lives here in Washington, actually." _This is why I don't like talking about her. She makes me feel so crappy and worthless. _"You know how weird that is? To have a mother that lives in the same state as you… she knows where you live… but you don't know a damn thing about her? She doesn't even know my name." I feel tears coming on. "I've heard my gram refer to her as 'Lis', so I think her name is Lisa or something like that. But she doesn't know anything about me. She's seen a picture of me when I was eight and that's all. My gram never told her my name, never told her what school I go to… she can't even remember my birthday. She was so high she doesn't even know when she gave birth to me."

"Well maybe you're better off without her. Maybe your grandmother knows you're better off without her and that's why she doesn't want her knowing anything about you…"

"I just don't understand how someone… even a crack addict, can have a daughter and not even attempt to learn about her. Even in the letters she wrote me that I snuck and read, she never even mentioned anything about how sorry she is. She doesn't even know my name! She addressed the letters to 'my mini me' and never even… she…" I just roll my eyes and shake my head. "It pisses me off just thinking about it. In the letters, she always shit-talked my grandmother about how she was keeping me from her, but come on. If she really wanted to know me, she'd try harder. My gram never really kept me from her. She kept herself from me, by constantly being in rehab and stuff. How can you carry a baby for nine months, go through all the pain of having it, and just dump it at a fire station? How could you do that?"

"Probably the same way a man can abandon his wife and three kids instead of going to rehab." He shrugs. "…The best people come from the shittiest parents, Jo. Just remember that."

"…Your dad… he's an addict?" I think that's what he was referring to, but I'm not sure.

He nods. "Used to beat the crap out of my mom, who was too dumb to do anything about it. Took him coming after me for her to finally kick his ass out. She even gave him the option, and he still chose being an addict over us. She told him if he went to rehab and got better, she'd take him back. He left instead."

"…Damn." I sigh hard and just look down at the ground. _How can the people that are supposed to love you more than anything in this world just treat you like this? How could a mother abandon her baby when she gave birth to it? How could a father just leave his three kids for drugs? I don't understand things like this. Why do shitty things have to happen to good people? _I clear my throat and fix my hair. "Enough with the heavy… let's go upstairs or something."

"Good idea."

**x x x**

"Oh my god, that's totally adorable…" I pick up the blue and silver hardback book and hold it closer to my face so I can get a better look at him. "You were the cutest thing, oh my goodness…" For the past hour or so, we've been looking through his old yearbooks. We're currently on his third grade one and I swear he gets cuter and cuter with every grade level. He had really light brown hair, NO front teeth and really pretty green eyes. "Look at you… in your Seahawks jersey…" I must admit that after the talk we had about our parents, it's nice to have something to smile with him about. Well, I'm doing most of the smiling and he's doing a lot of cringing. So far, I've seen April with thick, brown rimmed glasses and buck teeth. I've seen Cristina's pictures and she looks the exact same. Meredith looks the same too. Jackson had a big, fluffy afro and Alex was just adorable. I haven't been in any of the yearbooks yet, but this year I would have been in kindergarten so I'm probably way, way in the back.

"My mom insisted on dressing me like a dweeb." He's lying on his stomach on the floor right next to me and looking too. I don't know why we chose to lie on the floor instead of on his bed. It's comfortable though. "The lame comb-over hairstyle and the dorky jersey… that was all her idea."

"No, you were the cutest thing! I've never seen anything so adorable…and your smile. You had no teeth…"

"I looked like a jack-o-lantern."

"A cute jack-o-lantern though." Now that I've seen Alex, there's nothing else in this yearbook that I'm interested in seeing. I went to Graham Hill Elementary too and if I'm not mistaken, the kindergarteners were always in the backs of the yearbooks. I don't think he needs to see my kindergarten picture. I was so ugly. "Okay, next one."

"Hey, wait a minute… you're in this one too." He snatches the book off me and flips to the back.

"Alex, no!" I climb on top of him to grab it off him but he rolls over on his side so I can't get it. "Come on, I was so ugly! No!"

"Too bad." He goes immediately to the kindergarteners page and flips through it. "Wilson…Wilson…Wilson…." He mumbles, scanning for my last name.

"You're such a jerk! Come on, stop!"

He changes his voice so it's in a mock-female tone and he starts gushing when he finds my picture. "Awww look at little baby Jo! Josephine Wilson… how cute!"

"Stop! I was like five!" I try again to grab the yearbook. "Come on, don't do this!"

"You were cute too though." His voice returns to normal and he keeps staring at the picture. "What was up with the lopsided pigtails though?"

"Shut up!"

"No, look how little you were. You still look the same…" He puts the book down and lets me look at it too. _Geez, grammy. You really could've fixed the pigtails… _There I am, a happy little kindergartener. When I was little, I was so dark. My skin was so naturally tanned that I could have passed for a mixed child. I have on a fluffy pink dress with two lopsided pigtails that are tied back with two pink bows. My hair is so long that it's cut off in the picture and my fat, chubby face looks like I stuffed acorns in my cheeks. I was a really fat child. And my eyes were so hazel looking that I look scary. They contrast bad with my darker skin and darker hair. "You were pretty then, too."

"Please, I was such a fat child. I never grew out of my baby fat. I was such a fatty and my gram would just let me eat whatever I wanted." I squint at myself. My eyebrows were so wild that they needed waxed, even back then. My weird ass hairline (that literally starts on my forehead) makes my forehead look tiny and my fat neck is just… ew. I was so gross looking. "I was fat. Still am fat, but I was FAT."

"Who said you're fat?" He slides the yearbook out of the way and rolls over so that he's lying on top of me. I can tell that he's holding himself up with his arms though, because he's not heavy in the least. His hands are resting by my shoulders and he's hovering over me in a push-up position. "You're not fat. I prefer the term thick… and thickness is a good thing."

"Dude, I'm fat. Have you seen like… Leah Murphy, Steph Edwards and Heather Brooks? They're my friends and I'm seriously the fat one out of them. I'm huge and I know it. I just like food way too much. I need to go to the gym."

"…Leah Murphy? She has no ass and no tits. She's flat as a board. And Stephanie Edwards? If you hug her, she'd break in half. And Heather's got the body of a twelve year old. That's why they make good cheerleaders. They're nothing but bones so it's easy to throw them in the air. Same with Lexie. She's bones so she's easy to lift up." He lowers himself down on top of me, closer and closer to my lips. Surprisingly, I'm not even blushing. "There's nothing wrong with having a nice ass and nice boobs." I'm still not blushing.

"But my butt isn't that big and neither are my boobs. I'm kind of flat too, once you get past the chubbiness." I reach up and put my hands against his back. "Stop complimenting me…"

"What, now I'm not allowed to think my girlfriend's hot?"

"…Just chill with the compliments." Every time I touch his back, I just have to rub it. He's so muscular and strong and my god it's a weakness. I caress over his muscles and look up at him while he's hovering over me. "Every time you compliment me, I never know what to say. I feel like 'thank you' means I'm conceited and I don't have anything to say back to you… I can't compliment you back…without sounding stupid."

"Don't say anything back then." He lowers himself down some more and doesn't kiss my lips. He goes straight for my neck which drives me insane. "But I'm not gonna stop thinking you're hot just because it makes you blush." The feeling of his breath on my neck makes my eyes flutter shut. After he's done talking, he puts his lips on my neck, just below my ear and kisses it. _I swear I told him at The DemonHouse not to do this… _

I keep my eyes closed and just don't even think about it. I don't want him to stop… so I just won't stop him. Since I've decided that I'm not telling him to stop, I might as well have a little fun with it. Naturally, my hand slides up his back and to the back of his head as I grab onto his hair. He deepens the entire kiss on my neck like he's kissing me on my lips and I'm going crazy. The only way I can bear with it is by gripping his hair and rubbing his back, so I do just that. I feel like I'm going to hurl out a swear word or two, so I bite my lip to prevent that. His hands are seriously all over me and I don't even care. The only sound in the room is of his kissing and sucking on my neck and my unsteady breathing. His hands make their way down my body, past my boobs, past my sides and he stops at my waist. He slides them up my shirt until he finally stops them at my waist. _I have to kiss him… I have to. _

With his hands up my shirt and rubbing on my hips, I use one of mine to bring his face to mine so we can kiss. If I'm blushing, I don't know it. We don't even ease into the kiss; we're just full blown making out. His breath tastes sweet, like he's been sucking on a peppermint instead of my neck. He takes his hands from underneath of my shirt and grabs onto mine so that we're holding hands. I lock my fingers inside his and he holds my hands above my head while we kiss. If I don't stop this, I'm going to want to do something more than this and I can't. Even if I were the type to have sex with a guy on the second date, I couldn't do it. I don't want to stop kissing him but I really have to. "…A…A…" I start to tell him to stop but I really can't. I don't want him to stop.

He took my little moment of trying to speak to further the kiss we're sharing and below my waist, he wriggles his legs so that he's between mine. I slowly slide my leg up so that my foot is flat against the ground and my knee is bent. He's between my legs, I love it and I HAVE to tell him to stop. He pulls away from my mouth for two seconds and resumes kissing my neck. "Alex, we…. Have… have to stop…" I'm not even trying to whisper, I just am. I'm out of breath, I'm going crazy and I really, really want him. He moves his face from my neck to my collarbone. My eyes roll to the back of my head as I let out a satisfied sigh, almost a moan. "We can't have sex…" That comment alone makes him pull up from my neck. He looks at me with sorrowful but lustful eyes and I feel so crappy. I wanted that to last so much longer than it did but if it did, I would HAVE to do more than just kiss him and I can't. "…I can't." His face turns sullen and just a little bit sour. I can tell he thinks it's a matter of my "prudeness." "No, Alex…. I want to… I really want to. But I can't. I really can't… it's not like that. I seriously can't… not tonight."

"I wasn't even going to try." He admits. "I know you can't… I can't either." He lifts himself up in the push-up position again and looks down at me. "You know how shitty I'd feel if I slept with you on the second date? It's not time for that yet… no matter how hot you are. I know you're not that kind of girl."

"It's not even that. I CAN'T do anything with you… this week." I try to nudge his memory just in case he literally forgot.

"Oh… OH!" He looks like he's holding back a laugh. "I completely forgot all about that."

"Yeah… I really can't."

"Well on the bright side, you did pretty well with that. I don't think you blushed once."

"I told you I'm not a prude."


	15. Just Breathe

"What are you doing tomorrow? You have anything planned?" Alex speeds up a little bit to ensure that he makes the traffic light while it's still green. I wish that just for one minute, all the time in the universe can just pause and I won't have to leave him. I wish there was no such thing as a curfew, no such thing as running out of time and no such thing as me having to go home. I just don't feel like I get enough time alone with him. Granted, I just spent the last three hours holed up in his room with him, but I still want just a little bit longer. "We can hang out again tomorrow."

"Yeah, but why don't we hang out at my house for a change?" The silence in the car is really starting to get to me, so I reach down to the radio and turn it on. "It'll give my gram a chance to meet you and you'll finally get to meet her. She won't care if we go up in my room as long as we keep the door open." I turn the radio up just a little bit and sing inside my head while I wait for him to consider the option I just threw out. _Well you can tell everybody, yeah you can tell everybody. Go ahead and tell everybody. I'm the man I'm the man I'm the man. Yes I am, yes I am, yes I am. I'm the man, I'm the man, I'm the man. _I find myself softly mouthing the words aloud.

"Is it bad that I actually hate this song?" Alex laughs and leans forward to adjust the volume again. He turns it up so that it's quite loud. "You're sitting here singing it and I hate it. I'm glad it's almost over."

"Well geez, is there any song that you do like? April told me that you and Jackson are partial towards rap but I swear I thought she was just kidding." I glance out the window for a second and then back at him. "You don't know good music, dude."

"I do too. I just hate that song. All he says is that he's the man over and over and over again. It's an annoying song." He turns on his left turn signal so that we'll turn onto the street to get to my house. "Here… this is what I listen to." He presses a button the radio to turn on a CD. "Whatever you find on this CD is what I'm into." I lean forward to press play and the first song that comes on, I'm very surprised by.

"…You seriously like this song?" My foot starts tapping along to the beat because I really, really love this song too. I'd expect this from April but definitely not from Alex. I can't help but sing it out loud. "She looks so perfect standin' there in my American Apparel underwear. And I know now… that I'm so down. Hey… heyyyy…."

"I told you I know a couple good songs. This is a good one." His head is bobbing along slightly. "Go 'head and skip through the rest. You'll be surprised by some of the stuff on there." He taps the "seek" button and goes to the second track. "See, this is a really good one too. I actually put this on my gym playlist." His hands tap to the beat against the steering wheel. _All I need's a little love in my life. All I need's a little love in the dark. A little but I'm hoping it might kick-start me and my broken heart._

"Ew no, I hate this song. The beat sucks." I push the seek button again and skip to the third one. "But you've got a pretty interesting mix so far." Just then, Classic comes on and I'm very pleasantly surprised. "Okay, this is good! This is really good!"

"So we both agree on this one?" He turns the volume up once again and it's so loud that I'm pretty sure the speakers are gonna blow out. "My iPod died while I was at the gym last week so Kepner let me use hers and that's when I heard this song. I like it."

"Me too." I roll down the window just a little so I can get some air and start blurting out the lyrics to the chorus. "I wanna thrill ya like Michael. I wanna kiss ya like Prince. Let's get it on like Marvin Gaye, like Hathaway, write a song for you like this." I seriously can't believe that I'm really singing my heart out in front of Alex. I must really be comfortable because the only people I sing in front of are Shane and apparently, now Alex. "You're over my head, I'm outta my mind, thinkin' I was born in the wrong time. One of a kind, livin' in a world gone plastic… baby you're so classic. Baby you're so classic."

"You really do like music, yeah?" He makes another sharp left turn to get onto me and Shane's road. "As long as you don't try to make us have a stupid little song like Ape picked out for her and Jackson, I'm cool with you liking music."

I roll my eyes playfully at him. "You ever hear that song that's like… Why you gotta be so rude? Don't you know I'm human too? You ever hear that song?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"If I picked a song for us, that's what it would be." I hold back laughter until he gets the joke.

"Shut up, loser." He reaches over and taps me on my leg. I'm really starting to like his little love-taps. "I'm not rude to you."

"Oh, I beg to differ. You really are mean to me sometimes."

"I call it tough love." He turns onto the street that I live on and starts driving up my road. I really don't want to go home. The street I live on is a one way street, so he'll have to drive all the way past Shane's house to get to my house then circle around to get back onto the exit he needs to be on to go back to his house. I point at the large, white house that Shane lives in. "Shane… My friend, he lives right there." In Shane's house, there are a bunch of lights on which is weird because it's 12:40 at night and they should all be asleep. I'll call him when I get in the house to see what's going on. Up the street from where we are right now, towards where my house is, flashing red and blue lights are nearly making it impossible for me to even see. I get that somebody's probably getting arrested right now, but they could at least turn off the damn lights. I can hardly see. "These lights are blinding, geez…"

"What the heck's going on here? I thought you said you live by old people that don't bother anyone." Alex starts slowing down because the road is currently blocked off. He's gonna have to drop me off right here and back his way all the way down the road to even get out of here. From the looks of it, it looks like they're at my neighbor, Mrs. Anderson's house. She has really bad back problems and she probably fell or something. Either that or somebody's getting arrested. I'm leaning towards the latter because there are police cars and not just ambulances.

"…I don't even know. Somebody's probably getting arrested." I lean up in the passenger's seat to try and see a little bit further. "Can you park right there? Park right behind the black BMW." I point to the only available spot on the street. "I'll call Shane and see what's going on." I grab my phone from my pocket. I already have five missed calls from him. _How the hell did I miss five calls? _"They're at my neighbor's house… I wonder what happened…" I call Shane back and ultimately get his voicemail.

"…Jo, I think they're at your house." Alex rolls down his window and sticks his head further out. "What's going on at your house?"

I look over on his side to see if he's right. _My god, they are at the house. Why are police officers at grammy's house? _"What the hell…" I reach down on my own, throw the gearshift in park, right in the middle of the street and get out. _I bet my mom came here. She was probably pissed that I didn't come meet this weekend, and she probably showed up and grammy probably called the cops on that bitch. I bet that's what happened. _"What the hell happened…" My stomach just turns in knots as I try to figure out what to do. Despite the fact that I'm wearing my best pair of sneakers, I run as fast as my long legs will carry me until I get to yellow police tape that's being guarded by a bunch of officers. Next to where I'm standing is a white ambulance. _Oh my god… _"WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED?!" Even though I know I'm not supposed to, I cross the yellow tape anyway.

"Ma'am, behind the yellow tape, please!" Some big, buff police offer snatches me up by my arm and drags me away.

"I LIVE HERE!" I rip away from him and look around me. The front door is standing wide open and all the lights in the house are on. Officers and people dressed in blue uniforms are standing around in the hallway, talking and whispering to each other. My stomach just… drops. I feel like I'm going to throw up. _Please… no. _"…Where's my grandma?" I say but so quietly that only myself could probably hear. _Where's grammy?! Why is everyone around me just whispering?! Why is everyone in the house?! GET OUT OF THE HOUSE._

"Jo, honey, come away from here…" Suddenly, Shane's mom is standing behind me with her hands on my shoulders. "Come away from here…" Her voice is cracking while she's speaking to me and I just don't want to hear it. "Come on, sweetie…"

"…Where's my grandmother?" I ask again, louder this time. Somebody better tell me where she is. I don't want anybody but my gram. Somebody tell me where she is. And for the love of God, don't say… it.

"Sweetie, she didn't make it." Miss Kelly tries to hug me but just… no.

_Didn't make what? She wasn't making anything, except maybe dinner this evening! She didn't make what?! _Around my shoulders, Miss Kelly's hands tighten and she starts tugging me off my grandmother's lawn, pulling me away. "GET OFF ME, GET OFF!" I rip away from her too and dart right inside the house. I push the men standing in my way aside pretty roughly and stand dead in the middle of all the chaos. A man dressed in all black is writing things down on a yellow piece of notebook paper. I don't even feel like I'm… here, here. I'm here, but I'm not even… here. Like I can see everything happening around me as if none of it is even happening TO me.

I'm standing in the middle of my hallway, which smells like the Apple Spice candles grammy always lit. To my left is the man dressed in all black writing things down. Standing beside him is a woman in a blue outfit telling the man what to write down. And then there's me… in my black yoga pants, mint green sweater and a droopy, sweaty ponytail. My heart falls to the empty pit of my body where my stomach used to be as I just see her there, lying on a thin, blue and yellow gurney.

"Who the hell let a kid in here?!" The all-black man shouts at everyone around him as he finally notices me standing there.

"She must be the granddaughter." A woman with a really soft voice and long, curly hair approaches me. "Josephine? Honey, my name is Mrs. Meadows… I'm a social worker… okay? I need you to come upstairs to your bedroom with me so we can pack up some of your clothes… is that alright?" She kneels down to be eye-to-eye with me as if I'm a little kid again. "You're gonna come with me, and we're gonna find you a place to stay for the night." Will somebody just tell me what happened? I don't even know what happened… "We're gonna get you a nice place to stay for the night." She says again, as if I didn't hear her the first time.

"…Go to hell." I quickly turn away from her and run back outside. _Whatever she means by "We're gonna find a place for you to stay tonight." I'm staying right in my fucking bed. I'm staying here. I'm staying in my own house, in my own bed and she can kiss my ass. I'm not going anywhere. _I find myself just standing in the middle of the front lawn, running my hands through my hair, gripping it once I get to the end. _This was not supposed to fucking happen! This wasn't supposed to happen… _

The little porcelain mushroom figurines grammy puts in the yard every fall look tempting. _Don't do it. Don't even think about it…. Whatever. What do you have to lose at this point? _I don't even care. I'm not holding anything back anymore. I walk over to the four-foot tall glass figures and give them both two nice, hard kicks. They both shatter in big, robust pieces on the porch. _How could she just leave me like this? I don't have anybody! She knew I didn't have anybody! What even… what even happened? She was fine… she was fine. SHE WAS FINE. _ I look over at the ambulance. That window looks…delicious. I walk over to the ambulance truck real casual, like nothing's even wrong. _The world is so fucking unfair. I get a shitty mother, a deadbeat ass father, a dead grandpa and now a dead grandmother? Why do shitty things happen to such good people? _I don't even realize until I'm done, that my fist just went straight through the glass window of the ambulance.

And somehow, that wasn't enough. "Ugh!" I clench my teeth together and grunt louder than that. "UGH!" _ This is so fucking unfair. I never did anything to deserve this shit… this bullshit. This is bullshit. Give me a fucking break. _I feel something wet on my face, that I'm sure are tears. When I blink my eyes, they're still dry. Not tears? _Blood, you idiot. _I look down at my fists. They're both a bloody, glass-infested mess. I don't even feel it. I'm not even hurt, and I'm not even done. Well, the windows are all busted so I can probably dent the bumper now.

"Jo, I know… I know." Once again, Miss Kelly puts her arms around me, but this time she really means business. Her forearms squeeze tightly around my torso and she pulls me away from the truck with all the force she has in her. "Shhh, I know… I know… it's gonna be okay though. It's gonna be alright." As she calms me down, I start to feel the stinging of the cuts on my hands and the real tears coming down. "Go 'head and cry… go on…"

And cry, I do. The sobs just rock my body until I'm sure I have nothing left in me. When I'm sure there's nothing left in me, I cry even harder. This really just isn't fair. What even happened? Nobody will even tell me what happened. "But she was okay! She was okay… I left her thi…this morning and… and she was…she was fine." I don't even recognize my voice to be honest. My body feels like I'm not even inside it. My hands are stinging so badly that I'm sure something is broken inside of them, but that pain is nothing compared to how badly my heart hurts. I don't think I can breathe, I can't even move. The only feeling I have in my chest is the feeling of Miss Kelly's arms squeezing me. "She was okay this morning…"

"…These things happen fast…" She whispers in my ear and just keeps squeezing me. She lets go of me with one of her arms to use her hand to stroke my hair. I really just don't want her to touch me and that's me being honest. Her fingers start at my temple and work their way through the lengths of my ponytail. "It happened fast, honey…"

"…I should've been here…" _You should've been here earlier than 12:30. You should've told him to bring you home at 12:00 instead. You knew she wasn't feeling well. She TOLD you she wasn't feeling well. And your selfish ass wanted to spend all the time in the world with your stupid ass boyfriend. You should've been here! She was probably scared… she probably needed help. If you were here… You could've helped her… you could've done something. You were too busy making out with your boyfriend while she was here… dying. This is all your fault! The doctors said she needed to avoid stress and you went and yelled at her and told her she wasn't your mother. This is all your fault. This is your fault. And you didn't even properly apologize to her. You didn't even say sorry… _Slowly, I excuse myself out of Miss Kelly's arms and gradually just curl up in a ball of myself. I pull my legs into my chest, cover my face with my arms and put my head down on my knees. "I should've been here instead…"

"Jo… Jo, listen to me…" She puts her arms around me again. "It's not your fault. There's nothing you could've done to stop this from happening. Sweetheart, it was a heart attack. There wasn't anything you could've done…" She tries pulling me over towards her so that I'm lying in her chest.

"Get off me…" I mumble. "Please just leave me alone." I feel blood dripping off the palms of my hands. _You should've been here with her. She was dying and you were making out with your boyfriend. You should've been here… _I don't lift my head up, but I do hear a bunch of footsteps coming towards me. I just want everybody to leave me alone. Everybody leave me alone. Please, everybody just leave me alone.

"Shane, she's not in the mood." Miss Kelly shoos away whoever came over here. I guess it's Shane because she's talking to him but it sounded like more than one person came over here. "Give her a little while longer."

"What happened to her hands?" That's not Shane's voice. It's Alex's voice that just asked that. I definitely don't want to see him right now. If there's anybody in this WORLD that I want to leave me alone, it's HIM. I was too busy kissing him while my grandmother was DYING. I want EVERYONE to leave me alone, but ESPECIALLY him.

After Alex's voice, I hear Shane's answering his question. "She lashes out and breaks things sometimes. She probably just punched th—"

"Shane, I'm not going to tell you again. You both need to leave her alone. It's nice that you came to see how she's doing, but she's not doing well. She's not doing well, at all. Give her a little while longer."

I hear everyone talking around me but it's like I'm not even registering what any of them are saying. I do realize that my body is involuntarily shaking and I still feel very nauseous, but I don't even know what's going on around me. The only thing I'm thinking about is how I should've been here. On the weekends, I don't usually fall asleep until two in the morning or something like that, so I would've been awake. I would've heard her calling for help or something and I would've been able to get the ambulance here faster and she would still be alive if I were here. I'm not even cold but my body is shaking so violently like I'm shivering. I need to break something else.

I just can't even begin to imagine what it must have been like for her. She was so angry with me the last time I seen her. She was hurt and mad because I said that to her and I didn't even apologize. She died thinking that I hate her. I can't deal with that. I didn't even get to tell her how truly sorry I was for saying that to her. I didn't get to tell her that I didn't mean it. I didn't get to tell her that I love her more than I could even begin to explain. The last thing I said to her was that I loved her, but I don't think she knew how much I meant that. No, the last thing I said to her was that she's not my mother. I'll always remember that. She was the closest thing to a mother I had, aside from Shane's mother, and I told her that she wasn't. Those words probably rang in her head until her last minute and I think I'll always hate myself for that.

How scared must she have been? If it was a heart attack like Miss Kelly said, she was all alone and probably scared out of her mind. What if she called out for me? If I were home, I probably could have saved her. Heart attacks don't kill you within a matter of seconds, do they? She probably laid there in her bed, crying. She had time, because she was the one that called the paramedics, wasn't she? If she didn't call them, who did? She had to lie there and suffer until somebody came to help her and it could have been ME to help her. God, I hate myself. My body hiccups from my constant tears and my nose starts to run too. _I think I'd be better off dead too. Nobody else wants me. She was really the only thing in this world that I had. Lord knows where my dumb ass mother is, HEAVEN knows where my dad is. My mom was an only child, so I don't have any aunts or uncles. Pappy's dead and now grammy's dead too. I'd be better off dead too. All the family I have is pretty much dead. Like it'd make a difference to anyone if I were dead too. Nobody else wants me. Grammy was the only person that wanted me…_

"Josephine?" The same voice that belongs to that curly haired woman that approached me in the house is in my ear once again. "I took the liberty of packing up some of your things from your room… We're gonna take you to the hospital so you can get your hands looked at, and then we have a place all lined up for you to stay at for a little while… until we can sort through your grandmother's estate." I can tell in her voice that she's trying really hard to be sympathetic but I don't even care right now. I need her to leave me alone. I'm not going anywhere. I feel her wrap her hand around my arm in an attempt to pull me up off the ground. "The place I lined up for you is really nice and—"

"**GET AWAY FROM ME!**" I rip my arm away and swat one of my bloody hands at her. I screamed so loud at her that my own ears rung and my throat hurts.

"Mrs… Excuse me, Mrs…"

"Meadows." The woman introduces herself to Miss Kelly.

"Mrs. Meadows, I'm Kelly Ross… I live right down the street… three houses down, actually. Is there any way that I can take her? You see, I've known Jo since she was a little baby and I'm the next best thing to a guardian that she has. I've been taking care of her for quite some time and it's really not a problem for me to take her. It's better for everyone involved if you were to just let me take her."

"I'm afraid that won't work. Being that she doesn't have any other family members specified in her grandmother's wishes to take her, it's my job to place her in a temporary home until I can further sort things out."

"She doesn't HAVE any family to take her, that's what I'm trying to tell you." I can tell that Miss Kelly's getting angry. She's right, though. I don't have anyone to take me. "Her mother's never been around, God knows who her father is… she's an only child, her mother was an only child… I'm the closest thing to a mother that little girl has ever had. I live right down the street and she's familiar with my house and my children. It's not a problem for me to keep her. I'll keep her permanently. She might as well already be my baby anyway."

"Mrs. Ross, I understand that. I understand everything you're saying to me and I really do wish it were that simple, but it's not. I cannot let you keep a child that doesn't legally belong to you. At 12:04 tonight, she became a ward of the state and legally, I'm required to place her in the best foster home I can provide. I'm sorry, but she has to come with me now."

"Do NOT put her in a home. I'm telling you, putting that little girl in a home is the worst possible thing you could do to her right now. She's not prepared for that just yet. She's not… she can't handle that. LISTEN to me. I've been with that little girl since she was a little thing and I'm telling you that she can NOT go into a home tonight. Let me keep her."

"The house I placed her with is very—"

"LOOK AT HER HANDS. SHE DID THAT TO HERSELF." I'm actually listening to their entire conversation but I can't hear too well over my crying moans. "She put her hands through plate glass windows, and she will do it AGAIN if you put her somewhere she's not comfortable with while she's in this state of mind. She WILL injure someone, she will injure HERSELF if you don't listen to me on this."

"…I can make arrangements for her to stay with you and your family until her grandmother's estate and will are sorted through, but no longer than that. That'll take about three days, at the most. I will come back and get her to put her in the home I set up for her as SOON as things are sorted through. Could be tomorrow, could be Monday. Could even be Tuesday. But once things are sorted through, she HAS to be put into the system, there's nothing else to it."

"What… what qualifications and processes do I have to go through to keep her permanently?"

"That would either require you to complete the courses to get a license to foster her independently or you could start the process of adopting her. Both of these processes are quite lengthy though. If you decide to go through with either of those, Josephine would still be looking at spending about a year in a foster home until she's legally adopted by you or you're able to foster her."

"So what, she's just gonna be sitting in a house with foster parents for the rest of her life? What's she supposed to do then?"

"Typically, foster homes are for children waiting to be adopted out. Couples that have already been pre-approved to adopt can come to the house and look around. Josephine could potentially be adopted out by a couple or even the foster parents could apply to adopt her. It all depends."

"So some couple can come along and decide they want her? And she'll be adopted out, just like that?"

"Possibly."

"That's crap. I don't understand why she'd have to even go through the foster system if I'm willing and able to take her in myself. She'll be able to stay where she's comfortable, she'll be able to stay within the school district and she'd be with somebody that's already equipped to handle her. What are even the chances of her being adopted out anyway? Her grandmother just passed away and the first thing you people decide to do is put her in some place she's not even comfortable in? What ever happened to letting her grieve?"

I can't do this anymore. I can't just sit here and listen while they scream and yell at each other about my custody arrangements. Quite frankly, I don't want anybody to take me in. I don't want anybody to adopt me. I just want to be left alone. They have to leave me alone. I can't breathe right now and I can't even think about going to someplace else. I want to stay here. I'll sleep outside on the ground if I need to. I don't want to go anywhere. I don't want to go to Shane's and I damn sure don't want to go to a freaking foster home.

"She's frustrated and the only world she ever knew has just been turned completely upside down. She's a child…"

I seriously can't take this. I use my sore, bloodied hands to pull myself up off the ground. My legs are a little bit weak, which causes me to stumble backwards and lose my footing. I steady myself on the busted out windows of the ambulance and start walking towards the other end of the street. I don't know where I'm going but I can't stay here anymore. I can't sit here and listen to people debate about what to do with me when I'd rather just be dead anyway. Where's my grandmother? I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye to her. The joints in my hands are so stiff that I can hardly move them, but I cross them over my chest anyway and keep walking.

I don't have anywhere to go. I refuse to go into foster care but if they're not going to let me stay with Miss Kelly, then where else am I going to go? When my stomach is so queasy that I don't know if I'm going to make it another step, I sit down on the curb of the street and just sigh. What am I going to do now? Me and grammy talked about a lot of things, but we never once talked about what to do if she died. I don't have anyone to take care of me now. Am I supposed to just take care of myself? I feel the throw up rising up in my throat so I put my head down. To take my mind off the fact that I'm really nauseous, I turn my left palm up and look at the damage I did to my hands. A bloody shard of glass is sticking out between my middle finger and index finger knuckles. I grab onto it with my right hand and pull it. "Oowww… ow…." I yank the glass out and throw it into the street. _You don't realize that you're literally an orphan now. You have NO one but yourself. You're on your own now… and it's all your fault. You should have been here, instead of at your boyfriends. If you were here, you wouldn't be a stupid foster child now. _I hold my face up with my bloody hands and just sob all over again.

It's just so scary to think about how quickly the things around us can change. Just a few hours ago, I was having fun running through a haunted house with my friends. I was eating cheese sticks at a restaurant with my boyfriend, laughing about how prude I am. I was giggling, looking through yearbooks with him, gushing over how cute he was. I don't even want to think about the things I was doing while my grandmother was dying. I'm such a shitty person. But how crazy is that? You can be so happy, having the time of your life, but things can just switch just like that? I just don't know what to do now. She was fine when I left this morning. She was… yelling at me and stuff just like she was okay. Then she suddenly has a fatal heart attack?

What am I supposed to do? Somebody's got to help me, right? What do I even do? Where am I going to sleep? Who's going to hold me when I'm sad, cut my hair when it gets too long, pay my lunch bill and cut hangnails off my feet? What am I supposed to do without grammy? Please god, just give her back. I'm sorry. I'll treat her right this time. I know I took her for granted for a second, but I swear I'll do better. Just give me another chance. "I'm so sorry grammy…" I look up at the sky, just hoping she can even hear me. Is heaven for real? Is she really up there looking down at me right now? If she is, can she hear me? Does she know how sorry I am? I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry I said that to her. I'm sorry about the stupid fucking belly ring.

The more I cry, the harder it is for me to breathe. No, I seriously can't breathe. No, I'm serious… I can't breathe! I put my hand against my chest and open my mouth so I can breathe easier. It's like I'm trying to suck up air through a coffee straw. I can't breathe… I can't breathe. There's a bunch of doctors around me, somebody'll help me. I pick myself up off the curb and start walking back towards my house. Everyone is still waiting around for the coroner to come. They won't be too busy to help me, will they? Because I really can't breathe. I think I'm having a heart attack too. I think I'm dying. My heart is beating so fast, I can hear it in my ears. I'm feeling dizzy and very, very lightheaded. I can't breathe… I'm pretty sure I'm dying too. I can hear myself _trying _to breathe but I just can't. I'm gasping and gasping and there just isn't any air coming in. I stumble around, holding my chest. Somebody please just help me. I can't breathe, my head hurts, I feel dizzy… I think I'm going to pass out.

"Jo?" I think I hear Shane (or Alex) call my name but my hearing is all fuzzy and muffled. I don't want him. I don't care which one it is, I don't want either one of them. I want a doctor. I want a paramedic to help me. "Jo!" One of them runs over to me and grabs me by my arms. "Are you okay?" It's Alex, and I REALLY want him to just LEAVE.

"Get… away from me." I rip away from him and start running the other way, screw the fact that I still can't breathe. I don't want him. He's the reason I'm in this position right now. I was literally KISSING him while my grandmother was DYING. He's the last person I want to see. And for some reason, I can hear his footsteps following me. Why hasn't he left yet?! "I said leave me alone!" I stop running and turn around to face him. "Just GO HOME. I don't want you here! This has nothing to do with you and I DON'T need you! LEAVE."

"I'm not just gonna leave you like this, when I know you're in this state of mind! What kind of person do you think I am?!" He grabs me again and pulls me into his chest. I really don't want him to touch me. Stop touching me!

"I SAID DON'T TOUCH ME! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

"I get it, okay?! I get it!" I get that he's a football player, he's a wrestler, he lifts weights and he's so much stronger than me, but I really don't want him touching me. I can't get away from him though. He's manhandling me. "You're okay… You're okay… You're okay. Calm down… You're okay."

"NO, YOU DON'T GET IT. YOU DON'T GET IT!" I try again to pull away from him but my fighting only makes him resist my pushes more. He squeezes me so tight that my eyes could pop out of my head. "Let me… go!" He keeps holding me, despite my screaming. I eventually stop fighting him. "…The last thing I said to her was that she wasn't my mother…. I didn't even apologize to her… I didn't apologize and she's gone…" Once I stop fighting him, I realize that he's really just trying to comfort me and to a certain extent, it feels good. "I should've been here, I should've DONE something! I should've been here… I could've helped her… I could've helped her…"

"Shhh…." He squeezes me just a little tighter and makes me put my head down on his chest. "Shhh… it's not your fault. It's not your fault… you couldn't have done anything to prevent it…"

"Now what am I supposed to do? I don't have anyone…. I don't have anyone else…."

"You have me."


	16. Be Right

**A/N: **For some reason, chapter 15 hasn't been showing up in the recently updated section, so just in case you didn't see chapter 15 because it wasn't showing up, don't forget to check out chapter 15 before reading this. Thanks :)

-flawlesspeasant

P.S. New characters in this chapter! :) They're gonna be pretty important, too. Enjoy haha.

* * *

"And she did this to herself?" The doctor that's cleaning out my hands has spent the majority of her time with me asking Miss Kelly questions. I can tell by her questions that she might be thinking that I'm being abused. I tend to have that effect on people. I can tell by just the tones of their voices what their ulterior motives are, and I'm usually right when I guess. Right now, this doctor is thinking that I'm a victim of child abuse and she doesn't believe that I could have possibly done this to myself. You ever feel like you need to say something, just for the sake of saying it? Right now, I feel like I need to speak on my own behalf just to ensure her that yes, I did this myself, and no, I'm not being abused. But I feel like if I open my mouth, tears might spill out from the back of my throat and I'll end up drowning myself.

"Yes." Since we got to this hospital, Miss Kelly has not left my side. Shane tried to come here with us but he had to stay with his brothers. I think I appreciate the fact that she's been here with me every step of the way, but I don't really know how I'm feeling right now. I know that I'm numb; numb to everything, that is. I just don't feel like myself. "She put her hands through the windows of an ambulance truck… about two hours ago." Miss Kelly has her hands on my shoulders and she's trying to comfort me but it's just not really working.

"Uh huh…" The doctor nods and dabs a cotton swab around the bloody lacerations on my left hand. "That couldn't have felt too good…" Carefully, she turns my hand palm-up to clean off the underside of my hand. She still hasn't pulled any of the glass out of it yet. So far she's just been trying to get the bleeding to stop, one hand at a time. "How'd you break the windows? Those windows are made of tampered glass… you'd have to hit it pretty hard to break just one of them. But you broke all four of them?"

One single, salty tear dribbles down my cheek and I just keep my head facing forward. I don't even know if I remember how to talk. I can't even bring myself to form a single sentence. My tear drops down off my chin and splashes down on the knee of my black yoga pants. I could really use a shower. Funny how I just became an orphan two hours ago, and the only thing I can think about is how much I need to bathe. I have blood all over my face, blood all over my hands, blood on my sweater, blood on my pants and blood on my shoes. My hair is so loose and messy that it's hardly even in a ponytail anymore. The ponytail holder is hanging on to the last little bit of my hair, in the middle of my back.

"She's had problems controlling herself ever since she was a baby. She tends to get a little bit violent at times." Since I can't speak, Miss Kelly is speaking for me.

"So this is normal? She's done this before?" The doctor looks away from my hand and up at Miss Kelly for a moment. Her long, blonde locks fall to the side as the expression on her face tells it all. She doesn't believe that I've done something like this before. "Has she broken anything before the windows? Maybe put a hole through a wall or a dent in metal?"

"Oh god, yes. I believe she's put about… three holes through drywall… dented a metal bumper on a car."

"Have you ever thought about medicating her for these outbursts? I know most of the time, the parents are against medication but it can really help her control her mood swings. It'll limit her outbursts… I can even set up an anger management course for her to take if you'd like." For a brief moment, the doctor's ice blue eyes look me dead in the face then they flash back down to my hand. "Adopted children can sometimes be like puzzle when not much is known about their family backgrounds and histories. There actually might have been some behavioral problems in her birth parents that we don't know about."

"Oh no, ma'am. I'm not… She's not…" Miss Kelly tries to think of the best way to explain this shitty situation and there really isn't a best way, I don't think. "I haven't adopted her. I've just known her since she was very, very little. Her grandmother used to take care of her and I would look after her when her grandmother couldn't. I'm actually looking to start the process of adopting her, though." She whispers this next part. "Her grandmother passed away tonight, and I'm only keeping her until the authorities come to take her into foster care."

The doctor gasps, and for the first time tonight, somebody actually sounds genuine when they apologize to me. "I'm very sorry. That's awful." She finally lets my hand go and stands up from the little stool she was sitting on. "I'm going to call for a portable x-ray to see if anything's broken in the hands, then I'm going to page for an orthopedic consult… just to make sure it's safe to take the glass out without causing any further damage. Then we'll bandage you up and let you be on your way." If I actually cared enough to get to know the doctor, I think I might like her. Her voice is very friendly and she seems genuine. The doctor pulls Miss Kelly to the side and talks to her in a voice so low that I can tell I'm not meant to hear what they're talking about. "I can also page for a psych consult, if you'd like. They'd probably keep her overnight for evaluation… and they'd most likely give her something to help her sleep for the night."

"I actually think she might be on some medication for the anger, but…" Miss Kelly's voice goes down to an even lighter whisper. "She had a pretty bad panic attack back at the house where she wasn't breathing right… and she had two more in the car on our way here. Would that be a matter for a psychologist too?"

"At this point, I'd say a psych consult wouldn't hurt. Even if they recommend her to a grief counselor, that'd be better than watching her hurt herself trying to cope."

"Okay, so yes… I'd like the psychologist consult." I don't need to see a psychologist. I don't need a psychologist, and I don't even need a grief counselor. I need to be left alone for the night. I need a miracle to happen and for my grandmother to miraculously be brought back to life to take care of me. Unless a psychologist or a grief counselor can do that for me, then I don't want to see them. I really need to be alone.

"Alright, so the orthopedist should be in momentarily, and I'll put in for the psychologist. I'll swing back around in a little while to see how things are going."

"Thank you for your help, Dr. Robbins." Miss Kelly walks away from where the doctor was standing and comes back to the exam table I'm sitting on. "So kiddo, the doctor thinks you ought to see another doctor that'll try to help you sleep some of this off." She rubs my arms with her hands like she's been doing all night. Rubbing my arms used to be able to calm me down, but only when my grammy did it. "So we're gonna let them take care of your hands, and then the other doctor will probably come grab you and take you up to a bed for you to sleep in tonight. And I'll be back first thing tomorrow morning to pick you up." _Wait, you're leaving me? You're not gonna stay?_

I feel that feeling again. My throat is practically closing up and I'm starting to feel all weird again. She can't just leave me here by myself, can she? Isn't that like… illegal or something? Isn't there some kind of rule that says she has to stay? She can't just leave me here when I don't even want to be here in the first place. I don't need a psychologist. I don't want to stay here for the night. I bring my sore hand up and rest it on my chest. My heart is beating way, way too fast. What if that social worker comes back here tomorrow? What if she comes back before Miss Kelly comes back to get me and she takes me and I just don't see her or Shane ever again? I already lost my grammy… Are they really going to make me lose my substitute mom too? I can't breathe…

"Hey… hey. Josie, calm down." When she finally hears me struggling to breathe, she puts her hand in the middle of my back and kneels down so she's ear-level with me. "Calm yourself down… what's the matter? What's wrong? Do you want me to stay here with you tonight? If you want me here, I'll call off work for tomorrow and stay with you. Is that what you want? You want me to be here with you for the night?" I still can't breathe, but somehow I manage to shake my head. I just don't want to be here, period. I want to go the hell home. "Do you just want to go home? Do you just want to go back to the house and sleep with Shane for the night?" I nod at that. "Okay… okay. I'll tell the doctors that you want to go home."

At this point, I don't really understand how anyone can be nice to me. I killed my grandmother… how can anyone think I still deserve niceness? I'm not even sure how to be nice to myself anymore. I don't deserve any kindness from anyone. I killed somebody tonight…and I'll never forgive myself. I just feel like if everybody knew what I was doing while grammy was dying, they'd understand. They'd feel the same way I feel about myself right now and it would be rightfully so. I have to be the shittiest person on the planet. Maybe this was all on purpose or something. I don't know, maybe God or whatever just knew what kind of person I was going to be. Maybe he knew that I was going to be the shittiest person in the world and that's why he made my mom leave me. I'm not even sure if I blame my dad for not wanting anything to do with me. I don't know if I blame anyone for anything anymore. But I do blame myself.

I can't still be Alex's girlfriend, either. I have to break up with him. I have to break up with him and I have to at least try to make amends for what I've done. Alex deserves someone better than me. He deserves someone that's actually a decent person. He doesn't deserve someone like me. For everyone else's sake, I hope I never get adopted. I hope I stay in a foster home until I turn eighteen. I'm such a crappy person; nobody deserves to be around me. Everyone around me either leaves me or dies. It can't possibly be everyone's fault, so it has to be mine. They all have me in common. Pappy's dead, grammy's dead. They both attempted to take care of me. My mom's just gone, my dad wants nothing to do with me. Everything comes back to me. I don't even think I deserve to be alive anymore.

What're the chances of somebody wanting me anyway? The only person that wants me is Miss Kelly and I'm not even sure if she truly does. I'm guessing the chances of me getting adopted anyway are very slim. When you hear about couples that adopt kids, they usually adopt kids that are babies anyway. Nobody's gonna want a washed up, destructive, disrespectful, screwed up sixteen year old girl anyway. I gotta find a way to get out of here. I need to get completely out of this place, and I have to do it for SURE. I can't swallow a handful of pills, because that might not work for sure. I'd say shooting is the best way to go, but where am I going to get a gun? I don't think I have enough balls to actually hang myself. I could always jump off a bridge, but what if I fail at that too? I can always starve myself, can't I? I'm not very hungry right now anyway and when I do get hungry, it's not like I deserve food. I don't deserve anything anymore.

All of a sudden, another doctor walks through the door of the room that Miss Kelly and I are sitting in. The doctor's pretty, with deep brown, almost black hair, tanned skin and the cheekiest smile I've seen on an adult, ever. What'd I give to be her. She probably doesn't have a care in the world, and if she does, she does a well job at hiding it. I put my head down, staring at the papery covering on the exam table I'm sitting on. There's blood all over the covering from my hands. Doctor Gorgeous washes her hands at the sink after she introduces herself and starts talking to Miss Kelly. "So Dr. Robbins said that she's concerned about possible breaks? Let's take a look…" I reluctantly give her my left hand to start with. "This looks pretty nasty… how'd you do this again?"

"She put her fists through the windows of an ambulance about two hours ago, maybe two and a half hours by now. Is she going to be alright?"

"I don't think there are any breaks in the hands, because she seems to be moving them pretty alright. But I won't be able to tell anything for sure until I x-ray them. Did Dr. Robbins call for a psych consult?"

"Yes, and we've changed our minds. No consult for us. She really just wants to get her hands taken care of and she wants to go home tonight."

"I can tell her to cancel the consult, but are you sure you want to do that?" She's very gentle with both of my hands as she puts them down on a stand-up table she pulled out in front of me. "It's not every day that a sixteen year old punches out the glass of ambulance windows because she's a little pissed off. I'd say a psych consult is necessary."

"Her grandmother passed on earlier tonight and she just didn't know how to cope. I plan on taking her home so she can sleep this off. She just gets a little angry sometimes. She usually has a better control on her emotions, but sometimes they get the best of her."

"Yeah, I bet." Dr. Gorgeous straightens out my fingers on the table, which makes me wince a little bit. With this little wand thing, she softly runs over both my hands. I think she's x-raying them. "Most of the teenage hot-heads I've seen didn't look like you. What are you, head cheerleader? Beauty pageant star? Magazine model?" She actually cracks a smile at me. Her teeth are perfect too. I just shake my head at her. I'm flattered that she thinks I'm pretty but I'm in no way, shape or form pretty enough to be a cheerleader, beauty pageant girl or a magazine model. Even if I were pretty enough for all of that, it's not like I deserve her kindness and compliments. "I have a little girl of my own, and if she grows up to look like you, I'm putting her in all the pageants I can put her in. What color are your eyes? Green? Grey?"

"….Hazel." I whisper. It hurts so badly to talk to her. I feel like I've been swallowing sand and cotton balls all night and my throat is bleeding by even speaking.

"There's a voice." She smiles at me again. "Your eyes are absolutely gorgeous. And I'm assuming all that behind you is your real hair?" I nod. "Wow… you've got a real knockout on your hands, mom." She glances at Miss Kelly with her smile and puts the wand machine away. Softly again, she starts twisting and turning my hands to see how they move. "Your chart says your name is Jo. Is it really Jo or is that short for something?" I nod. "What's it short for?" I just sigh. I'm really not in the mood to talk anymore. "Will you tell me if I guess right?" I nod again. As if she does this every day, she starts pushing my thumbs back and forth, testing them. "Joanna?" I shake my head. "Joanne?" I shake again. "Joelle?" Shake. _I wish my name was Joelle. That's pretty. _"Josie? Like Josie and The Pussycats?" I shake again. "Aah, I give up. Was I at least close?" I nod.

"…It's Josephine." I mumble and turn my head away from her. It's nice to not think about grammy for a moment, but here I am, thinking about her again and I'm just really fucking sad.

"Josephine." She repeats. "I get how rough it is growing up with a name like that. That's why everyone just calls me Callie, because Calliope, really, that's a mouthful." She softly puts my hands down back on the table. "And my wife… yikes. I can only imagine the butt kicks she used to get on the playground with a name like Arizona." For some reason, she really makes me smile. "The ones with the weird names… we're the tough girls. We learn young how to defend ourselves… we can handle the weird names. Just like you handled those windows." That makes me laugh for second. I feel guilty for laughing though. "I'm gonna get these x-rays developed and I'll be back to take this glass out and either splint them or cast them up for you."

I watch her as she leaves out of the room. I actually kind of like her, a lot. Wait… she said her wife's name is Arizona… like the doctor that examined me first? They're married? _What does it matter, though? You'll probably never see either one of them again after you leave here._

* * *

"Mmm…." My chest is contracting so violently that I'm shaking, even though I'm standing underneath scalding hot water. I purse my lips together and just end up squealing again. "Hmmm hmmm….." _Shut up. Stop crying so loud. Somebody's gonna come in here and think that you're killing yourself. Shut up. _My stomach feels so empty. I literally have to reach down and push my palm against the skin of my stomach to see if there's an actual hole in the middle of my gut. I feel like a cannon has been shot clean through my middle. I'm really not trying to cry so loudly, but I can't help it. The groans and sobs that are slipping through my teeth are so involuntary that I'm not sure I could help it if I tried. I snivel like a baby and just keep sobbing. "Mmmmm….." _If you don't stop crying… I know you're sad but you have to shut up. You're being too loud. _

The second I get myself to stop murmuring and groaning out in sobs, I pick up the wash cloth Shane put in the shower for me and rub the bar of soap into it. When it's lathered up nicely, I harshly rub the sudsiness all over my body. I'm careful around the six stitches I have in my hands while I wash my body. I got lucky that I didn't break anything or sprain anything in my hands. The worst I needed was stitches and they didn't even hurt. I rub away the blood that was on my face and let the hot water hit my sore hands. It's just really hitting me right now. Grammy's gone… and I'm all alone now. In a few days, somebody's gonna come and take me away. I think I'm going to be sick…

_Just suck it up. SHE'S GONE AND SHE'S NOT COMING BACK. It's your fault she's dead anyway. _I turn around and let the water hit every aspect of my body until I'm sure all the suds are rinsed off of me. I lean forward, shut the water off and pull the shower curtain back. _You know, if you wanted to, you could've just ended it a second ago. You could've easily drowned yourself in the bathtub. That's quick and painless. You're a pansy. I called it. You won't kill yourself. _I reach across to the towel rack and pull the clean brown towel Shane also set out for me. I wrap it around my body, let my hair drip down my back and walk out straight into Shane's room. He's downstairs with him mom and not in his room, which I thank god for. I just need a moment to myself.

I sit down on his bed and nibble on the edge of the towel, where the stitching is. Maybe if I just don't think about grammy, I'll be fine. But I really just can't help but wonder what all of this means. When's her funeral going to be? Is she even going to have one? I knew that when the time came, I'd have to take care of funeral arrangements. I knew that I'd have to be the one to bury her and all that. I just never thought I'd have to think about any of this at sixteen years old. I thought I'd be a grown woman by the time I had to bury grammy. Is there going to be a funeral? And what happens to the house? Can I just live there? Grammy owned the place and everything in it. Is it mine now? The car? Is the car mine? Will I have to keep paying the mortgage and the car insurance on the car? Is this all just my responsibility now? Where am I even going to live? I don't want to go to foster care. Can't I just stay in the house by myself? What's going to happen to me?

Just when I thought I was done crying, another wave of sadness rushes over me and just consumes my entire being. _Why did any of this have to happen? I wasn't ready for any of this… I'm just so, so, so sorry. Everything is my fault. I should've been there… I should've been home… I'm sorry to everyone. I'm sorry to myself, even. _Just stop thinking about her! I need to stop thinking about it! But I can't… _Remember when you were little, she used to let you sleep in her bed? You didn't sleep in your own bed until you were four years old. She would always put a pillow on the other side of me so I wouldn't fall out of the bed… And she would put me in the bath with her when I was a baby too. Remember how she used to treat you like you were her babydoll? She used to paint your toenails and fingernails every single night, just so people would compliment you when we went out to the store. She really took pride in the way you looked, Jo. She used to make sure you were always dressed your best. Oh, and the princess tea parties! She used to wear crowns on her head and actually boil the tea for me to use and we used to have tea parties all the time and wow… I just really miss her. _I put my head down and let out another crying groan. _Remember how she used to always tell you, "goodnight Joey" or "good morning, Joey." I think I'll miss her telling me goodnight and good morning most of all… can she just tell me goodnight just one more time? Just tonight?_

Just then, the door to Shane's bedroom opens up and he walks through it. I think he gets that I'm not in the talking mood, because he just silently walks over to me, stands in front of me and hands me a bottle of water and a packet of Tylenol pills. I reach out and take the water and the pills. The pills are probably for the really bad headache I have from crying. I tear open the packet of pills with my teeth and shove both of the tiny red, white and blue capsules in my mouth. I wash them down with a quick gulp of water and swallow. Shane takes the water back off me and leaves the room once again. I just keep thinking about how I didn't tell grammy I'm staying over Shane's tonight…

I reluctantly pick myself up off Shane's bed and start towel-drying the rest of my body. Completely naked, I drag my feet over to the duffel bag the social worker packed from my room and start rummaging through it for pajamas. I grab a pair of underwear, a t-shirt and a pair of shorts from the bag. I snatch a purple packaged tampon from the bottom of the bag too and start dressing myself. _Is it always going to hurt this bad? How do people ever get over losing their parents? Am I always going to feel like this? Am I always going to want to plot my eventual suicide or does it get better? Because I need it to get better. I need it to get better right now. _Once I'm fully clothed, I drag my feet back to Shane's bathroom. I need to use a comb for my ratty hair. I stand in front of the sink and I'm really taken aback by what I see in the mirror.

My usual bright, cheerful hazel eyes are so dark and hollowed out, like I'm not even inside my body. My pupils are dilated and the rims of my eyelids are so puffy and red. My cheeks are really, really red and my nose is raw from me wiping it constantly tonight. I slowly pick up a wide-toothed comb and start dragging it through my hair. When I lift my head up a little, on the underside of my jawline, right below my ear is a soft, barely-there but really noticeable, purple hickey. _DO I REALLY HAVE TO KEEP REMINDING MYSELF WHAT I WAS DOING WHILE SHE WAS DYING?! _Out of pure anger, I drag the comb through my hair so hard that I hear a clump of my hair rip from my scalp. Ouch… but I deserve that. Again and again, I drag the comb furiously through my hair, ripping more and more of it out as I go along. _I just really fucking hate you right now. I hate everything I see in the mirror. I hate your eyes, I hate your nose, I hate your mouth, I hate your hair, the hickey on your neck, the innocent dimples in your cheeks, the beauty mark by your mouth… I hate you. _I throw the comb on the ground and just hold my head with my hands. _Why… just… just why?_

In front of my eyes, I see water dripping down from the crown of my head and collecting into a puddle on base of the sink. I'm shaking but I'm not sure if it's because I'm cold or if it's because I'm just upset. "Do your hands… hurt?" Suddenly, Shane appears in the doorway. It's nearly 4:00 in the morning. He should be asleep or something. He walks softly into the bathroom and stands beside me. With his bony index finger, he reaches out and touches one of the stitches I had to have put in my right hand. "Did it hurt when they put the stitches in?" I just close my eyes. _Well it didn't feel good, asshole. _"…You can talk to me, J. I won't… say anything to anyone, if you talk to me…"

I reach up with my sore hands and pull the towel hanging up beside me off the rack. I just throw it over my head so I can dry my hair properly. My mounds and mounds of thick, curly wet hair fall down around my waist and out of the towel because I didn't secure it on my head. Usually, I'm yelling at Shane to get out of the room or turn around while I'm trying to properly finish my shower routine, but I don't even care right now. He unsurely puts his hand out and starts towel-drying my hair for me. "It's gonna be okay, J… It's gonna be okay." I just look at him, because I don't have anything to say to him. "It'll be hard for a while… but I swear it'll be okay in the end."

"…It's not gonna be okay, Shane. It'll never… EVER be okay again." I swat his hands away from me. "Y… you know… you know what I was doing while she was DYING, Shane?" He looks at me with apologies clear in his eyes. "I was getting felt up. I was getting a hickey… while she was dying. You tell me how that's EVER going to be okay…"

"…Is that what this is all about?" Instead of trying to dry my hair, he pulls me into a really warm hug. "It's not your fault… I know it feels that way, but it's not. You couldn't have possibly known that this was gonna happen… don't blame yourself for this. You have a real fucked up way of thinking everything bad that happens to you is somehow your fault, and it's such crap, J. It's crap. Not everything is your fault. The truth is… if you knew… if somehow someone told you that your gram was going to die tonight, you wouldn't have even gone out… would you have? You wouldn't have gone anywhere tonight, because that's the kind of person you are. You wouldn't have gone anywhere if you knew. But you DIDN'T know, J. You didn't know… these things happen… and there's nothing you could do about it."

"But I could've saved her, Shane! If I were home… she wouldn't have had to call the paramedics herself. I would've called. I would've called, I would've saved her time and I would've saved her. I wasn't there and I should have been… I should've been…"

"NO, JO. NO. That's not true." He grabs me by my shoulders and pushes me back so we're looking eye to eye with each other. "If you were home, she would've STILL had the heart attack. It was her time… that's all. It was her time. If there was anything you could've done, it wouldn't have happened. It was her time to go, regardless if you were home or not. You gotta stop blaming yourself for shit that has nothing to do with you. NONE of this is your fault, J. None of this. Shitty things happen to good kids… I thought we established that. You think for one second… you think for one second, I didn't run through every scenario in my head when my dad died? I thought if I were in the car with him when that truck hit him that maybe I could've absorbed more of the impact. I thought maybe I could've been the one that got most of the injuries and he'd still be here. The fact is that these things happen and there's nothing that we can do about it. It sucks, but it's life."

"Leave me alone, Shane…"

"No. I'm not just gonna leave you alone. You were there for me every single day. When my dad died, you were here for me. You let me cry on your shoulder, you let me vent to you, you talked me down from some serious ledges. I'm gonna be here for you too. I'm not leaving you alone."

"…This is it though, Shane. This is it…" I can't help but hug him back. I hug him tight, too. "I don't…. this is not like when your dad died. This is totally different. I don't have anyone else to take care of me. This is it for me. …I'm leaving in a couple days… what if I never see you again?"

"That won't happen. My mom's really serious about adopting you. She was just downstairs on the phone with my grandparents and my Aunt Terry. She's really serious. She wants to adopt you."

"But the social worker said that I'd still have to go into foster care until she gets approved or whatever. And even then, she might not get approved. They're taking me away in a couple days to GOD KNOWS WHERE. I might not be able to stay at Garfield. I might not even stay in Seattle. It all depends on where they put me… what if they put me somewhere far away from you? Far away from… Alex?"

"…I can still call you. I won't let you go just like that, J. You're my sister, remember? You're my sister and I'm always gonna be here. You're my number one girl, remember?"

"…Can't call me if I don't have a cell phone. Who's gonna pay my bill?"

"I don't know. We'll figure this out though. We'll figure all of this out. If… if I have to break the law to get you to stay here, you're gonna stay here. My mom's gonna adopt you and it's all going to be fine. It's going to be alright."

"…I just hope your right. I don't know what I'm going to do if everything isn't alright, Shane. What if everything isn't alright? What if we never see each other again? What if I never see you, your mom, Nicky and Matt? What if I never see Alex again? Then what?"

"That won't happen. …God isn't that shitty. I don't think he'd make your life that miserable. Plus, Alex is… crazy about you."

"…I just really need you to be right about this, Shane."


	17. Together

**Sunday**

Have you ever had one of those nights where you're not entirely sure if you've even slept? I just had one of those nights. When I pick my head up from the plush pillow I "slept" on last night, I find that my neck is really stiff, my eyes are extremely sore and heavy and my head is aching right in my temple area. I think somehow I managed to cry myself to sleep last night but I don't feel like I slept at all. I still feel like I haven't slept in days, possibly weeks. There's an empty space in the bed right next to me and the sheets are a little bit colder so Shane must have been awake for quite some time now. Scenes from last night just keep replaying over and over again in my head. I just keep replaying the moments before I must have fallen asleep and it's not doing anything but making my head hurt even worse. My arms are a little sore from what went on before I fell asleep last night, too.

"_Get off me, Shane. I have to go home!" I'm trying to get out of the bed donning nothing but a pair of underwear and a t-shirt, just to walk up the street at 5:00 in the morning. "Let me go! I'm going home!" Shane's got his arms wrapped so tightly around me that I can't even move. He's squeezing me and pulling me away from the door like a prison guard trying to keep a convict from escaping. He's hurting me. "I didn't even tell her that I'm staying over here tonight! She won't answer her phone, I have to go tell her where I am! I have to go check and see if she's okay!"_

"_It's alright, J. She knows you're over here. She knows where you're at." Shane's just spitting sweet nothings out into my ear to calm me down and it's not working. I didn't tell grammy that I was staying over his house tonight and she won't answer her phone when I call her. I just have to go let her know where I am. She'll worry if she doesn't know where I'm at. "You need to get some sleep. You're tired, come on. Let's get back in bed." He's dragging me towards his bed and I'm trying my damnedest to resist him. I've always been stronger than Shane… so why can't I get out of his grasp? _

I get up out of his bed and listen to my legs crack as I stand straight up. My arms hurt a little bit too badly for me to even bear it. I must have really been fighting him off last night. Either that or he really did have me tight enough to leave me feeling sore the next morning. Forcing the thoughts from last night out of my head, I limp over to my duffel bag and grab the same pair of shorts I put on after I got out the shower last night. I slide my legs into them and slowly leave out of Shane's room. I smell food coming from downstairs. It kind of makes me want to throw up. As I descend down the steps, I hear the busy chatter in the kitchen. I recognize both Shane and Miss Kelly's voices, but I don't recognize the other two voices talking with them. They're talking about me, of course.

"Shane, go upstairs and check on her. Let her sleep if she's still sleeping." His mom orders him. "If she's awake, tell her to come get something to eat if she's hungry." After she's done talking, I hear the sound of metal clanking off metal, like she's stirring a spoon in a glass mug or something. "I'm hoping that I can talk to somebody about letting me keep her until the adoption stuff is legal. I just don't want to see her go into a home. I can see her seriously injuring herself…or somebody else, if she goes into a home."

"Kell, she's a little girl. You're making her sound like she's the omen, or the Armageddon." One of the voices I don't recognize chimes in. "How much destruction can a little girl like that really cause?"

"If you could've seen the way she acted last night…" Shane says. "You'd understand what we're talking about, Aunt Terry. She can be a little… explosive."

I rub my eyes so hard that I see those weird little light marks you always see when you sneeze or whatever and finish walking down the steps. If I didn't know any better, I'd say it sounds like they're afraid of me or something. I'm not dangerous, I just get angry. There's a big difference. I push my poofy, still damp hair out of my face and walk into the kitchen. All eyes are on me, of course. I steady myself against the countertop and take a little bit of my weight off my achy legs. I'm just exhausted, to say the least. Sitting at the kitchen table is Shane, his aunt, his mom and his mom's mother. I've met both of them before. I met Shane's aunt at one of his family reunions, and I see his grandma every holiday. I'm familiar with both of them, so why do I feel so… strange in front of them?

"Good morning, Jo. Are you hungry? There's food on the stove." Miss Kelly uses the same "I don't want to alarm you" cautious voice she's been using with me since yesterday. I just wish everyone would stop treating me like I'm some kind of freakshow. I'm sad, yes. I'm pissed that this happened to me, yes. But I'm not some little kid that everyone has to talk in circles around. For god's sake, treat me like I'm sixteen not six. I shake my head at her and grab a coffee mug from the top shelf in the cabinet. I dump the last little bit of coffee from the pot into my mug and drink it black. It burns running down my throat, but it feels good.

"You want a little sugar with that? Maybe some cream?" His aunt offers me the container of coffee creamer. I shake my head at her too and keep drinking the black, bitter-tasting coffee.

"So…" Miss Kelly scoots her chair out from the table and stands up. She starts walking over to me with her hands outstretched. "How'd you sleep last night?" I shrug my shoulders, finish off the last sip of coffee and push the mug into the sink. _How does it look like I slept? _"Well if you're not too tired, your grandmother's attorney called me this morning and she has a few documents she wants to read over with you… only if you're feeling up to it, though. I was told that you don't need to be there, but they would like it if you were there. I told her that we'll see. Are you interested in going?"

I shake my head yet again and just look down at the kitchen floor. When I'm trying to distract myself from crying, I always find something miniscule to occupy my mind with. Right now, I'm trying to see if I can make out a picture in the pattern of the linoleum floor. I softly clear my throat and open my mouth up just a little. "…Do you know when the funeral's going to be?"

"From what I understand, I don't think there's going to be one, sweetie." She tangles her fingers in the bottom length of my knotted hair and tries to comfort me. "I think your grandmother's will was very specific. She asked to be buried next to your grandfather, with very little services, so the mortician is taking care of that.… she wants everything to go to you, when you come of age… The house, her estate…"

"…So that's just it? I don't even get to say goodbye to her? No funeral, no time for me to say goodbye. That's it?" _That's not fair. I know we didn't have anybody but each other, but seriously… they could've had a little funeral for just me. I deserve to say goodbye to her. The woman's raised me for sixteen years and I don't even get to say a proper goodbye? The last memory of her I'm supposed to carry with me is seeing her dead, lying on a gurney? I wasn't even supposed to see that. Well so much for what Shane said last night about God being too holy to make everything about my life shitty. _"That's fan-fucking-tastic." I mumble under my breath. I take a deep breath and just roll my eyes. _You've gotta get yourself together here, Jo. You can't just mope around feeling sorry for yourself all day, every day. _"…So when's this social worker coming to get me?" I've honestly already come to grips with the fact that I'm about to be sent to a foster home until further notice. There's no sense in me crying and feeling sorry for myself anymore.

"We're still not too sure about that. It won't be today, but it could be tomorrow… it could be Tuesday." She keeps on rubbing through my hair and I want to pull away but I won't. "I'm going to talk to somebody about letting you stay here with us until I can get custody of you. Or maybe I can work something out with this foster family you're supposed to go stay with. Maybe they'll settle with me out of court and let me keep you on weekends or something… just until you're doing better."

"Do you know anything about the foster home I'm going to?" I sweep my hair back out of my face again and just look at her. I can handle whatever. I'm a big girl. This sucks, but like Shane said last night, this is life. It happens. "Where's it at? Who are the people anyway?"

"Jo, we don't have to talk about that just yet. We don't have to worry about that until th—"

"I know you know, so just tell me. Where's the damn thing at? I think I have a right to know where I'm about to be thrown into… don't you think?"

"…I hear it's on the other side of town…in the Franklin school district. I was told that they're really nice people. They foster three or four other children, all around your age." _Well that's just great. I won't be going to Garfield anymore. I might as well get ready to be the new kid. And this family fosters a bunch of other kids? What are they, starved for having children of their own? Are they just greedy little bitches that want to keep all the kids they can without ever adopting them? This is such bullshit. _"Jo honey, I promise you that everything will work out in the end. You'll be able to stay with us for good. I'll get everything legalized, you'll be back in your normal school with all your friends. If… and I do mean IF you have to go to this foster home, I promise it won't be long. I'll work as hard as I have to, to get you out of there."

"I don't even care anymore." I mumble and turn to walk out of the kitchen. At this point, I'm at the mercy of everyone else. I do what everyone else wants me to do, whenever everyone else wants me to do it. This is just my life now. It sucks, but it's my life. I don't have choices anymore.

I'll just have to get used to this.

* * *

**Tuesday**

"So the only homework you have is from Mr. Spindle. He says study for a vocab quiz on Friday. I told him you might not be back by Friday and he says study anyway… and he's sorry." Shane tosses a nearly empty yellow folder down on the couch next to me and collapses in the spot beside me. I told him to make sure he brought me homework and so far, looking through this folder, all I see are a bunch of "I'm sorry" cards. I'm honestly feeling a hell of a lot better. It's still hard for me to think about her and all that, but if I don't think about her, I feel… good. I'm just trying to get myself back to normal. I slept mostly all day, and I actually ate some lunch. I could only stomach about two or three bites, but it's still something. My appetite hasn't returned to normal just yet. "Leah wants you to text her, Heather said to give you her number and Steph said to tell you that she's really sorry."

"I'm fine, Shane." I close his laptop and move it off my legs and onto the coffee table. I've been replying to and thanking everyone on Facebook all day for their kind words. It's tiring. I just don't want anyone's pity anymore. "I think I might ask your mom to let me come back to school tomorrow. I'm sick of sitting here in this house." I start rummaging through the "I'm sorry" cards in the folder Shane brought me home to see who all gives a damn about me. "…And there's nothing today, so it probably won't be today. The office closes at 3:30 and we haven't heard anything yet, so it most likely won't happen today."

"My mom's been talking to lawyers about getting a court order to just keep you here. I think it's working." He starts to help me open up all the cards I got. "Oh, and Alex told me to tell you to text him. He seemed kind of worried, even though I told him you were feeling better."

"Did you tell him that I'm just not ready to talk to him yet?" I have been ignoring Alex, but it's not malicious or purposefully. I just don't want to talk to him yet. I'm not ready for that. I'm not mad at him, I'm not upset with him, I'm not even blaming him. I'm just not ready to jump back into the relationship. I'm not… equipped to deal with him just yet. I'm taking it one day at a time. I still feel incredibly shitty, and that's the truth. I'm feeling better than I was feeling yesterday, I'm feeling better than I was feeling the night it all happened. I'm just not completely better yet. I'm still dealing. "I'm not ready to talk to him yet…"

"It's not fair to keep ignoring the dude, though. He looked really beaten down today, over you. It's not fair to keep dissing him and ignoring his texts and calls. The least you can do is break up with him properly, J. That really messes with a man, trust me."

"I'm not breaking up with him, Shane. I just need a little while. I'm taking things one day at a time, and today is not the day I'm ready to deal with Alex. I don't want to break up with him. I'm just… confused right now." I reach up with my hand and touch the spot where the hickey is. I'm just not ready to deal with anything that happened that night. Not yet.

"You need to tell that to him then. Stop being mean about it." He tosses the three cards he opened up to the side and picks up his laptop. "…Can I ask you something?"

"Mhm." I gather up all the cards and shove them back into the folder.

"Do you… want to stay here with us?" He logs onto his Facebook account and starts scrolling down his newsfeed. "I noticed that everybody is just basically telling you what to do and what to want, but nobody's really asking you what you really want. Do you want to stay here with us? Do you want to go to the foster home? What do YOU want, Jo?"

"…I just want to stop talking about everything." I scoot over so I can look through his Facebook too. "For one day, I don't want to hear the words 'foster home', 'adoption', 'legal papers' or 'food.' For one day, I don't want to think about what happened. I want to move the hell on with my life. If I have to go to a freaking foster home, then I'll deal with that. I'd rather stay here with you guys… because at least I get to feel like somebody will take care of me. But I lost the right to think about anything for myself, two nights ago. So while I'm still here, where I'm comfortable, I don't want to think about any of that. I want to enjoy the time I have with you guys, the time I have left a Garfield. I want to enjoy it. That's what I want."

"But not talking about things isn't coping with things, Jojo. You're sweeping everything under the rug and that's not good for you."

"It works for me, so just shut up about it." I reach over to the mousepad of his laptop and scroll up his newsfeed to see something real quick. "Why doesn't your mom die, for all this? Why doesn't your mom die, why don't you become an orphan, and then you let me know the right or wrong way to deal with that? Until then, leave me the hell alone about how I'm dealing with this crap, Shane. The end."

"…Well would now be a good time to tell you that I invited him over?" He looks over at me with a guilty look on his face.

"Invited who over?" I'm pretty sure I know who he's talking about, but just in case he's not talking about him, I have to ask anyway.

"…Alex."

"WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!"

"Because! …Look, yesterday at lunch, he was so upset. He wasn't eating anything, he wouldn't even talk to Jackson. I kept trying to tell him that you needed your space, but… Jo, he was so sad!"

"WOW, SHANE. REALLY?"

"…I'm sorry! I just… it won't hurt. And you might feel better by talking to him. I told him to come over at 4:00. I was gonna let him surprise you, but I thought you might run upstairs and hide if you saw it… so I'm giving you time to prepare yourself, at least."

"I'm so tired of everybody telling me how I should fucking feel about these things. GOD, I COULD KILL YOU RIGHT NOW."

"…You'll thank me later."

"I fucking doubt it." I just reach over and pick up my phone. I have to talk to someone about all of this before I fucking explode.

**x x x**

**Tues, Oct 21, 2013**

**3:39 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **so what's been going on without me?

**April: **OMG hi! Are you feeling better?!

**Me: **yeah i've been fine since like sunday to be honest. i'm fine.

**April: **oh well we all think you should still be taking a couple days off. But it's been okay without you lol. are you sure you're doing better?

**Me: **i'm fine, i swear. once people stopped bring all this food and stuff to me i started feeling better lol. no but seriously how's everybody been? i want to get back to school so bad already.

**April: **everybody's been okay! We all pretty much miss you haha. Even cristina says she misses her hairball lol. You've been staying at Ross's house huh?

**Me: **yeah for the meantime. we thought they were going to come get me yesterday but they haven't.

**April: **when are they supposed to come for you? do you know?

**Me: **they said whenever they sort through all the papers and shit. i think something's happened bc everything's being all held up right now. i don't mind staying here tbh. everything is just getting better as long as i'm here. i'm starting to feel wayyyyy better being here.

**April: **omg that's so good. i still haven't told alex about anything thats happening to you but I think you should tell him. he's starting to get really worried and stuff.

**Me: **i just don't want him to know everything. i just don't know if i can handle everybody treating me different. ever since my gram died, shanes been treating me all weird and i just want things to be normal again. i want to come back to school and stuff and i don't want people feeling sorry for me. idk, he's supposed to be coming by to visit me in a little bit or something

**April: **ohhh okay I get it. well I'm glad you started texting me. I was getting worried about you too & good. he's been so worried about you lately I'm glad he's gonna see you.

**Me: **i'm seriously okay. i mean i'm still feeling a little… yucky and sad but it's no where near as bad as it was a couple days ago. i know it's only been since saturday but i'm really just ready for everything to be normal again. people keep expecting me to need all this time to grieve but i'm okay now. people grieve in diff. ways and i'm handling it ok. everyone keeps treating me like a baby. & whatever I just wasn't really ready to face him yet but…

**April: **well you kind of just lost the only person that took care of you… everyone's gonna treat you like a baby its only fair. Plus you are a baby lol

**Me: **i just want to come back to school. i think i'm allowed to come back tomorrow but idk. shanes moms been keeping me sheltered lol

**April: **you should take at least a week off

**Me: **but i don't really want to bc im not always going to go to garfield. idk when theyre taking me away from here, but when they do, i'll be going to school at franklin. i want to come back to at least say bye to everyone before i have to leave.

**April: **omg you're switching schools? :(

**Me: **yeah i have to. whatever foster thing i go to, its in franklin school district so i have to switch schools. i want to at least say bye to everyone.

**April: **you don't have to go to franklin. you can stay at garfield though. all you need is an address to use.

**Me: **i know. i thought about all of that. idk. if i come back to school tomorrow, will you just make sure nobody treats me weird?

**April: **of course. But I don't think you should come back to school tomorrow. it might be too much for you to handle

**Me: **i'd rather be in school with everyone than trapped up in this house with shane's mom lol. i love miss kelly and all but shes driving me nuts. she babies me too much! plus i need other human contact. shane is boring now lol

**April: **you could always text your boyfriend. Seriously he's been all depressed and stuff without you. it's the saddest thing I ever seen.

**Me: **I don't even want to talk about him right now. i'm not mad at him or anything i just need a break i guess.

**April: **well he misses you.

**Me: **ik and i miss him too. but i need a minute away from him to myself. looks like i wont be getting that.

**April: **well we all miss you but he misses you especially. the lunch table hasn't been the same without you.

**Me: **i might be back to school tomorrow idk yet. do me a favor though.

**April: **yeah?

**Me: **just make sure people don't treat me like a baby tomorrow.

**April: **ok i will.

Just as I receive April's last text message, the doorbell to Shane's house rings. Shane springs up off the couch to answer it. "Sit your ass down. You're not answering the door, you did this to me in the first place." I stand up with him and pull him by his shirt collar back down on the couch. "You've done enough for me today, asshole. Your duty is done for the day." I side-step away from him and start walking to the door to answer it. I really just don't want to talk to Alex right now. It's the last thing I really want to do. Because I know Shane will try and eavesdrop if I bring Alex inside the house, I'll talk to him outside on the porch. God, I'm so mad at Shane. I unlock the door, don't even bother putting on a pair of shoes and step outside onto the porch. _Oh wow, Shane's right… Shane and April were both right. He looks a mess… _He looks like he hasn't slept much either. He looks like he hasn't really done anything but sit awake for a few days. What am I supposed to say to him?

"We can talk out here." I merely whisper, shutting the door behind me. Barefoot, I step out onto the porch with him. I know I don't look my best right now, but he looks HORRIBLE. I have on a pair of raggedy sweatpants and a tank top, with my hair up in the messiest, sloppiest, heaviest bun on the planet. But he doesn't look like he usually does. He has on sweatpants too, with a plain white t-shirt. He's usually dressed so nicely but he's not right now. He doesn't even look like he's on the same page as I am. "Helloooo… earth to Alex…" I wave my hand in front of his face and he finally blinks. "I said we can talk out here… just sit down."

He sits down on the steps that lead up to Shane's porch and I sit right beside him. I just really wasn't ready to deal with him today. Gee Shane, thanks a lot. I cross my legs as best as I can in the sweatpants I'm wearing and open my mouth. _We have to start talking somewhere._ Just before I can get anything out of my mouth though, he starts talking. "Look listen, I get it. I get it if you're mad at me… if I did something wrong… if I'm not the best boyfriend in the world. I get it. I understand if you want to break up or end this. I'm fine with that…" He blows out a huff of air and sighs hard, holding his head with his hand. "Just tell me if that's what you want to do, though. Tell me, so I can apologize for it and just leave you alone for good."

"…That's _not _what I want, though. You didn't do anything. It's all me. It's something that I have to work on… and I don't want to involve you in it. This doesn't have ANYTHING to do with you, and I'm not ready for it to include you. So just step off… please."

"You could at least tell me what I did, though. I obviously did something for you to start hating me out of the clear blue…"

"I don't hate you!" _See, this is exactly why I didn't want to talk to him about this. I'm not ready to argue with him about this. _"I just told you that this has nothing to do with you and somehow, you're still trying to twist this around and make it about you. Is it so bad to just want you to stay out of my damn business?"

"You've been ignoring me for DAYS, Jo. I tried texting you on Sunday, nothing. I called you yesterday, nothing. I Facebooked you, NOTHING. You make it my business when you start avoiding me like the black plague."

"BECAUSE IT'S NOT YOUR BUSINESS, ALEX. What goes on between me and my own private life isn't your business. Just like it wasn't your business to stay there with me that night. I never asked you to do anything. It's NOT your business and what even gives you the RIGHT to act like you know me?"

"…Wow. That's low. That's low, even for you." He shakes his head at me. "First I'm not hands-on enough for you, and now I'm TOO involved because I don't know you?" I just shrug at him. "You make it so hard to get to know you, because you bite my damn head off every chance you get. I don't even know what made me want to get to know you…. this is just a low blow… Fine. I'll leave you alone. I won't talk to you ever again."

I just really need to break something right now and I need it bad. "That's NOT what I want! I want you to leave me alone until I'M ready to talk to you about it! You don't get to act like…you don't get to act like we've been together for forever. We barely just started dating and you're just so far in my business… I don't…" I sigh. "I don't know."

"So, because we just got together, I'm not allowed to care about you? Geez."

"That's not what I said! You just… YOU DON'T KNOW ME. You don't know what I'm thinking…." I pinch the bridge of my nose and try so hard to calm down. "My head is just so fucked up right now and if you knew half the shit I'm thinking about…"

"You're right. I obviously DON'T know what you're thinking about. Would it be so bad to let me in, though?"

I hold my face in my hands and just take a couple deep breaths. "…I'm a shitty person, Alex. I always have been and I always will be. And you don't deserve something like that in your life, alright? So yes… I've been ignoring you. But only because I don't know how to end this. I don't know how to tell you that I want us to break up and still be friends. I don't know how to explain to you that I… I like you A LOT. But you don't deserve this. You don't deserve a shitty person like me. So yes, I've been ignoring you."

"…You think that matters to me?" He just looks at me in dead silence for a moment. "…You're not a shitty person. You're far from it. I have pretty good radar for shitty people and you're NOT one of them. And even if you were a shitty person… I don't care. I've learned to lo…" He stops himself and I immediately look at him because I know exactly what he was about to say. I know exactly what he was going to say. "…What makes you so shitty?" He completely changes the course of his words and I'm glad he did. I'm not sure I wanted to hear him say what he was going to say.

"You just don't know me, Alex. You don't know me and you don't know what you've gotten yourself into with me. I'm no good for you. And I'm sorry I even let this go on, knowing that you deserve better than me."

"What makes you so shitty?" He asks again.

"…I'm just…" I bite my lip. _Well here goes nothing. _"…Everyone that attempts to even… love me… ends up dead or gone. My grandfather tried taking care of me, he died. My grandmother took care of me, she's dead. My mother doesn't give a crap about me, I doubt my father knows I exist. I just keep thinking… it can't possibly be their faults, can it? It has to be me. I have to be the problem. And I don't want to hurt you, because you… you're GOOD. You're very, very good. And you don't deserve me for the person I am. You don't need a psycho, crazy, hot-headed girlfriend that may or may not break your windows when she gets pissed. You don't need me."

"And you think for one second you deserve me?" He scoots a little closer to me. "My mom let my dad beat the crap out of her for fifteen years before she did anything about it. It took my dad, coming after me with a damn chainsaw for her to get off her ass and kick him out. My mom even told him that if he went to rehab, she'd take him back. He left us instead. He'd rather be a junkie than be with his wife and three kids. And you break windows? Who cares? I break fingers… noses… arms, maybe."

"Don't make fun of me."

"I'm not making fun of you."

"…I've broken my bones before too, so yeah… I still win."

"I meant I've broken other people's fingers, noses and arms, Jo."

"…Really? What reason do you have to possibly be that angry?" I roll my eyes. "With your loving mother, two siblings… perfect football, wrestling life…"

"You." He shrugs his shoulders.

"Me?" I raise my eyebrow at him.

"I thought Kepner told you all about this." He starts moving around like he's suddenly uncomfortable. "Why I got detention."

"I mean, she kind of did, but… I didn't get the full story."

He sighs. "Last guy that told me…" He scratches his head and looks away. "Last guy that told me he wanted to do something dirty with you, he ended up with a broken nose."

"…So you get mad too?" I know he's not really into holding hands, but I really want to hold his hand to let him know that I'm sorry for ignoring him and being mean to him. I reach over and grab his hand and hold it inside mine. "…So we can be shitty people together…"

"You're not the shittiest person on this porch, just know that." He actually lets me hold his hand. Actually, he pulls me over towards him and lets me lie on his shoulder. "So you're not breaking up with me?"

"…I'm not breaking up with you." I close my eyes and just take this moment in. "…But I am switching schools…"

"You're what?"

"Switching schools. If I go into foster care, I'll have to go to Franklin school district instead of Garfield and… yeah. So I'll never see you… but I still don't want to break up with you."

"I'll still come get you on the weekends." He leans down and kisses my cheek, which inevitably makes me blush, of course.

"…Alex?"

"Hmm?"

"…What were you going to say earlier? When you said you learned to… do something. What were you going to say?"

"Don't worry about it."


	18. New

"I can't believe this is really your last day…" Stephanie holds open the black garbage bag for me as I shove the majority of my belongings inside of it. I have to agree with her on that. I mean, obviously at the start of this school year, I thought for sure that I'd ride out my freshman year here at Garfield, in the same district I've been in ever since middle school. I never thought I'd be packing up to leave it right in the middle of the very first semester. Since Leah's taller than I am, she's cleaning out the very top part of my locker for me and Heather's helping me sort between trashy papers and papers that I might actually need. I can't believe I'm not even feeling like I should be crying right now. I don't even feel like a tear is going to fall. "We're really going to miss you, Jo. Like… a lot." _I'm switching schools, not dying. _"I'm going to miss copying off your homework most of all, though."

That makes me crack a smile. "Shut up, Steph. I know, it must be terrible for you. However are you going to get perfect grades on your homework without me? Poor you." I trace an imaginary tear on my cheek with my index finger. "No, but seriously… I'm just going to Franklin. I'll be a half hour away, tops. It's not like I'm moving to Olympia or Forks. I'll still be here in Seattle." I'll be at the total opposite end of the city, but at least I'm still here, right? Besides, it's not like they're going to miss me that much. First of all, they JUST started talking to me a couple weeks ago. Secondly, it's not like I was really in with their crowd anyway.

"Seattle's a big city." Leah tosses a beat-up yellow binder down on the ground and keeps pulling things out. "But seriously, of all schools for you to go to, you're going to Franklin? I mean COME ON. They're probably gonna back you into a corner and skin you alive once they hear you're coming from Garfield." _Oh crap, she's right. _ It honestly completely slipped my mind that Garfield and Franklin high schools have been long-time rivals. Garfield plays Franklin almost every year in the football and basketball playoffs when we make it and we lose to them EVERY SINGLE TIME. Garfielders hate Frankliners and Frankliners hate Garfielders. _I really hope this doesn't mean they're gonna hate me now._ "I can't believe you're leaving us to be a Sea King."

"It's not like that, guys. I don't have a choice where I go to school at anymore. But once a Bulldog, always a Bulldog. My first day there, I'll totally wear a Bulldog t-shirt. What do you think they'd do?" I toss one of my old pencil cases into the garbage bag. "I'll never root for the Sea Kings, I promise." I don't know if I'm quite ballsy enough to actually wear a Garfield t-shirt on my FIRST day at Franklin, but it sounds good to say to them. I still don't even know when I'm supposed to start at Franklin. Yesterday, the social worker came to Shane's house to discuss some things with me and she basically told me that I'm leaving tonight. I'm going to stay with the Michaels' or whatever their last name is tonight. I wasn't really paying attention to the social worker chick whenever she was telling me about the foster family, so I don't even know their last name for sure. Anyway, she's picking me up at Shane's house at 4:15 and she's going to take me to my new house. And that's that, I guess. I don't know much, but I really don't want to go.

"Just don't get skinned alive. Even though you're going to be going to Franklin doesn't mean that we're gonna hate you, and we don't want you to get skinned alive." Heather throws away a big stack of papers and touches my ankle like she's talking to me with some form of ankle-communication. "Just promise us that you'll sit on our side if we play you guys in football or basketball." She looks up at me and smiles. "And if you happen to see a cute golf player over there, give him my number."

I playfully roll my eyes at her comment. "Of course I'll sit on Garfield's side. Just 'cause I'm going to Franklin doesn't make me a Franklin supporter. Plus, my boyfriend still plays for the Bulldogs. I'm… still anti-Sea Kings." I assure them. "I'm promising you guys that I won't support the Sea Kings… you guys have to promise that you won't shun me. I don't know when I'll get to come back and see you guys, but promise me that you'll still like me. If the people I live with let me, I'll come to football games and basketball games still."

"We won't shun you, Jo. We still love you." Steph puts down the trash bag and wraps her bony little arms around me. "It sucks that we didn't get the chance to add you to our group… we totally were going to." They were going to include me in their little group? Wow, they really must have liked me. I thought for sure that piercing my bellybutton was a form of bonding with the three of them, but I didn't know that they liked me enough to start putting me in with their little group.

"…But I thought you guys only hang out with cheerleaders." Okay, I'm starting to feel like I'm going to cry. I think they're actually really going to miss me… Dammit, I don't want to leave. I'm going to miss everyone so much. What if I don't make friends at Franklin? What if this foster family hates me? What if they hate me, what if everyone at Franklin hates me and what if they really do shun me because I'm from Garfield? Then what? I'm just really starting to wish that I had come to school all week instead of just coming back yesterday. I came back on a Wednesday and I'm leaving on a Thursday. I only had one day to say bye to everyone. This sucks…

"You're totally one of us, Jo. Cheerleader or not… we make exceptions for you, cause you're awesome." Steph keeps hugging me and I just really need her to let me go before I burst. I'm going to cry. I can feel it. _Don't you do it… you're gonna do it. _Yeah, I'm doing it. My jaw starts trembling uncontrollably and the tears just come streaking down my cheeks real suddenly. I cover my face with my hands so they can't see my face. _I can't believe you're crying… and you're crying hard, too. You were on a roll. You haven't cried since Monday night. You blew it. _

"Aww… Jo!" Leah stops cleaning out my locker to give me a hug too. She towers over Stephanie and puts her arms around me too. For some reason, Heather's hugging my leg. "We didn't mean to make you cry… don't cry." Leah starts rocking back and forth which causes Steph to rock too and eventually, I rock too. "Don't cry. We're still gonna be buddies…"

"And we all have your number. We'll Facetime you and Skype you and stuff while we're having our sleepovers… and you can always come sleepover with us. We'll still hang out." Steph's trying really hard not to cry herself.

"You got me an A on that geography project… you're invited to every sleepover from here on out." Heather starts rubbing my leg. "It's okay. It would've been nice for you to be here next year though… that way our posse is even."

I sniff really hard and push away the tears that are spilling out of my eyes. "I just…" My voice comes out in a high-pitched squeal through the tears, so I just shut up for a little while. I didn't even realize how hard I was crying until I tried to talk. "I just started really getting close to you guys and now I have to leave… it's not fair."

"It's still going to be okay. We're just not going to the same school anymore. We can still be friends." Steph uses her own hands to wipe away my tears. "We promise that we'll call you and we'll invite you over and stuff. You and I can still be football game buddies. We won't forget about you."

"And we'll all look out for Alex for you." Leah moves my hair away from my forehead because it's sticking since I started sweating while I was crying. "We'll keep him in line. We'll make sure no hoes look his way and we'll make sure he's not looking any hoes' ways. We're still gonna be friends."

"You have really comfy legs." Heather's face is rested against my kneecap. She really makes me laugh. I think I'll probably miss Heather's weirdness the most.

"You're so weird, Heather." Through a soft laugh, I start wiping my face again. "I'm just really gonna miss you guys." I sniff again as I'm starting to regain control of myself. "I just wish I could at least stay in a school I like. Everything's so different for me now; the only thing I really wanted was to at least keep my school…" I'm not even trying to think about the fact that I'm staying with complete strangers tonight. Right now, I'm focused on the fact that I'll be going to a totally different school, soon. I'm not sure how soon, but it'll be soon. The social worker got my transcripts sent over to Franklin yesterday so I'm sure I'll be at Franklin soon… "Promise you'll look after Alex for me?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and just look at the ground. I guess what's scaring me the most is the fact that I just don't know anything anymore. I don't know if these new foster people are going to let me come back to Garfield to visit. I don't know if they'll be alright with me spending nights over Heather's, Leah's or Stephanie's. I don't know if they'll be alright if I spend a day or two at Shane's house. I don't know if they'll be alright with me spending some time with Alex. What if they're super strict and don't let me do anything?

"Between the three of us, Alex is in very good hands. We'll beat any whores off him. We'll beat him off whores. We'll play the panty police for as long as we have to. We got you, Jo." Steph pats me on my back. "We got you."

"Make sure he doesn't look at any other girls… make sure nobody wears his jersey to school… if someone even says hi to him, tell me." I know I probably sound like one of those crazy girlfriends, but it just seems like the right thing to ask of my friends. I'm honestly a little confused because at this point, I don't know if I care. I won't be here… so what does it matter if another girl shows interest in him? _Just shut up. You care. _

"Well, I don't know if I can promise any of that heavy stuff… I'll be a little too busy with my own man, but I'll try my best." Leah gives me a goofy thumbs-up. It's still so weird to hear her call Shane "her man." Eeh.

"I already had the talk with Shane." I put my hands up to her and shake my head. "I already gave him the whole 'keep it in your pants' talk." I won't be here to make sure he's acting responsibly with his junk. Maybe that scares me too; the fact that I won't really see Shane every day. What if my foster parents are monsters that don't want me to associate with him at all? Shane's my best friend and his mom has done everything for me. What the hell am I gonna do if they tell me that I can't see the Rosses anymore? Oh god, what if he messes up and gets somebody pregnant? I'm not gonna be here to make sure he wraps it up. I won't be here to constantly nag him about being responsible with his sex life. What's he going to do without me? …What am I gonna do without him?

Whatever, I'm just not going to think about it.

* * *

**A/N: **So I've been receiving a couple of PMs asking about the recent speed up in the story. I don't usually explain anything about the way I write things and why I write things the way I write things because usually, my readers catch on in the end. I realize that this particular concept is a pretty tough one to grasp, and the majority of the people reading this are still relatively new to my writing style. So with that being said, I will explain the sudden jumps in time and the lesser and lesser explaining from day to day.

Yes, I have been skipping many days and many important details of what's going on in Jo's life, but there is a method to my madness. The skips in time and the lapse of detailing are supposed to tell exactly HOW Jo's coping with the death and the changes in her life. I'm not explaining every single day because Jo's not really… paying attention to every day. My writing is supposed to reflect on her coping mechanism. She's suppressing a lot of events, simply because she just doesn't want to deal with them. I'm only writing about the events that "Jo" cares enough about to actually not block out. All of the skipped time and the missing pieces of the story are aspects that she's simply been blocking out in an effort to grieve in her own way.

In the future chapters, you all WILL find out exactly what's happened in all the potholes and the missing days. I plan on making it a point to explain everything that went on in the parts that she's blocking out, and you'll understand if she really is (or isn't) as okay as she claims she is.

Oh, and I hope you guys are okay with it just being Jo for a while. No Shane, no Shane's mom, no Leah, Stephanie, Heather. No April, Jackson, etc. No Alex, for a couple chapters. You'll understand what's going on soon, and I will bring back the characters as soon as I feel like my concept is rock solid.

Happy reading!

* * *

"Come on, Josephine." Mrs. Meadows, the curly headed social worker is really trying hard to get me out of this car. I'm just not ready yet. I mean, I'm fine with the fact that I'm here… I'm just not ready to go inside yet. What if they seriously don't like me? I'm not ready for this yet. Can I just go back to Shane's? "They all know that you're coming… they're expecting you. There's no reason to be nervous." She's carrying two of the duffel bags of my things I packed up and I'm supposed to carry the other two. I'm not nervous, I'm just not ready. Please don't make me go in there. "Everything is fine… I won't leave until you're completely comfortable." Well, here goes nothing.

I sling both of the duffel bags over my shoulders and climb out of the back of the black BMW she drove me here in. _Nice house. _I take a deep breath and just look around. The house has to be about three whole stories. It's big, layered with grey bricks and cobblestone walkways. The windows are bright white and the shutters are a dingy green color. The front yard is littered with baby tricycles and sidewalk chalk. On the porch is a wooden swing, hanging up in front of a really big, wide window. _Great. I'm going to some richy-rich family. _As I walk up the front steps, I hold onto the cobblestone railing leading up the steps and brace myself for this. I'd really just rather stay at Shane's forever. Mrs. Meadows uses the brass knocker on the front of the door and I feel my heart sink down into my stomach. Somewhere inside me, I don't really believe this is happening. Everything just seems so… surreal. _I just hope I don't have to share a bed with anyone._

About thirty seconds after Mrs. Meadows knocked on the door, it opens up and I immediately put my head down before I can see the face of whoever opened the door. "Hi! Nice to see you again, Paula." Meadows greets whoever opened the door like she's a long lost friend. I think I'm going to puke. The two of them start chatting away about stuff I'm not really paying attention to. Instead, I'm focusing on the very large paws of something standing in the doorway. Very, very large paws. Paws that are bigger than my face. _That's not a dog, that's a horse. _When I get over the initial shock of the horse in the doorway, I actually tune into their convo. "She has everything from her room that she could stuff into the bags. Her grandmother left her every asset in the house, but she gets nothing until she's of age. She does have a car that she left to her that she is permitted to have, as she is able to drive. I'll bring the car over tomorrow along with the other documents. She hasn't spoken a word since she got in the car with me, but other than that, she's perfectly healthy."

"Aside from the… fist in glass incident, she's not violent, is she?" The woman that Meadows is talking to whispers that last part.

"She _does _take medication for mood swings and anger management. I had her prescriptions forwarded to the pharmacy right down the street. Other than a few occasional outbursts, she's not violent and she's a really good kid."

"The kids are really excited to meet her. It's been a while since we've had another littler girl in the house with us." Just as the woman says that, Meadows moves to the side so that she's not standing in front of me anymore. I can feel the woman's eyes on me but my head remains down at the ground. I just really, really don't want to be here. Somebody please take me away from this place. I get that feeling like I can't breathe again, so I close my eyes and try to manage through it. _You're okay… you're okay… _"…Hi there, Josephine. I'm Paula… do you want to come in the house?" _Not really, no._ I shake my head softly at her. I should've put my hair up in a ponytail to keep it out of my face, but as of right now, it's my only defense mechanism. She can't see my face if my hair's covering it.

"Josephine, this is Paula Myers… the woman I've been telling you about. This is who you're going to be staying with." Meadows touches my shoulder and I shrug her off. I don't want to be touched. Hell, I don't even want to be looked at right now. Everyone just… please leave me alone.

"Why don't you let me take you inside and show you your room?" Paula extends her hand to me. _I don't need you to hold my hand. I can walk just fine. _"The twins are at basketball practice, Alyssa's at play rehearsal and the baby just went down for her nap, so it's just you and me. I'll show you all around." _So I'm living with a pair of twins, someone named Alyssa and a baby? Super. Where's her husband or her wife? _"We've all actually been looking forward to meeting you." _Just go, Jo. It'll shut her up. _I side-step the horse-dog and step up inside the house. "Is there a nickname that you want me to call you? Or do you prefer to be called Josephine?" I shake my head. "No, there's not a nickname? Or no, you don't want to be called Josephine?"

"…Jo. J-O." I run my fingers through my hair and look at the carpet. The carpet looks expensive as heck. Why do I feel like the little orphan Annie? Some family took me into their expensive mansion. I feel like I'm in a movie.

"Alrighty. I can call you Jo." She slowly takes the bags off my shoulders and puts them next to the stairs. "And you can call me Paula, Paul or Mrs. Myers, whichever you prefer. The other kids tend to call me 'mom' but I understand if you're not comfortable with that." She puts her hands on my shoulders and starts leading me through the house. _ Why does everyone insist on touching me? I can walk myself. _"So, there's my daughter from my previous marriage. Her name's Alyssa and she's a senior in the high school you're going to be attending. There are the twins, Jason and Jacob. They're juniors in high school. I fostered the twins when they were about… ten or eleven. I adopted them both when they turned fourteen. And Lilly is the baby. She came to me when she was two weeks old and I've been fostering her ever since. I'm in the process of adopting her. And the big ball of fur that's following you around is Bowser." _So I have two foster sisters and two foster brothers and a foster dog? Super. _

"…Where's your husband?" I mumble.

"Oh, Alyssa's dad?" She kind of laughs a little bit at that. "We divorced five years ago. He didn't quite like the fact that I foster. We had our differences and we mutually parted ways." She reaches down and lovingly scratches the dog's head. I'm not trying to sound ignorant or rude, but I didn't think that single parents could foster or adopt or whatever. I thought they wouldn't give kids to you unless you're married. I guess I was wrong about that. "So um… the rules." She seems just as nervous as I am, if not more nervous. "We eat dinner every night at 6:30, in the dining room as a family. Only on occasion are you permitted to eat in front of the TV in the living room." With my head still down, I roll my eyes. _One ridiculous rule down. _"Curfew on school nights is 9:30, 11:30 on weekends. With there being so many of us living under one roof, showers are very valuable. As long as everybody respects the baby's bath time at 8:00, it doesn't matter what time showers are taken. There are three bathrooms in the house. The downstairs bathroom is the boys' bathroom, the upstairs bathroom is the girls' bathroom. The bathroom off the kitchen is just for using the toilet only; there's no bathtub in it. Do you have any questions for me?"

_Yeah, I have tons. None that you'd probably want to answer, but I have tons. _"Where do I sleep?" I stick my hands in my sweatpants pockets and drop my shoulders. It's got to be about 5:00 by now. I know it's early and all, but the only thing I really want is to go to sleep for the night. I'm not hungry, I don't want dinner, I don't want to meet anybody else. I want to take a shower and sleep, that's all.

"I'll show you to your bedroom. Come on." Again, she touches me. After she picks up all four of my duffel bags, she puts her hands on my shoulders and starts guiding me through a narrow hallway and up the flight up stairs. The steps are all wooden with dark green carpeting in the middle of each one. The staircase is kind of spiraled but it's all carved out of some type of wood. On the landing of the steps is a brownstone fountain that's spewing out crystal clear water. _That's nice. _Paula leads me down another hallway, past a bathroom, past a washer and a dryer and past a bedroom with a pink door. "This room has been used as a guest room for a long time now, so it's a little bit… boring. But you're welcome to spice it up and make it your own once you get comfortable." She twists the wooden doorknob to the door and opens it.

The room has dark brown, plush carpeting and light blue walls. There's a full-sized bed jutting out from the wall. The headboard of the bed is dark brown and wooden. Underneath the bed, where the box-spring is supposed to be, is a series of drawers. The bedding is blue just like the walls. In front of the bed is a wooden dresser with an old tube-TV atop of it. Next to the dresser is a nearly-empty bookcase, and across from the bookcase is a desk with a blue desk-lamp and a wooden chair. _Well I was kind of expecting to have to share a room with somebody. What does this woman do for a living, anyway? For her to be a single parent, she sure does have a bit of money. _"You're welcome to unpack your things and get comfortable in here. The rest of the family should be home in about a half an hour."

I nod and take a seat on the bed. I run my hands over the blue bedding and sigh. It's pretty soft. The bed is soft and so are the covers on it. I don't think it'll be that bad to sleep in tonight. Finally, I use both my hands and sweep my hair out of my face as I sit atop of the bed. I'm trying like hell not to cry right now. My long, brown locks don't stay out of my face for long. They fall back down in bouncy waves around my chest, so I tuck the two biggest chunks behind my ears. Paula's dragging each of my four bags inside the room. _At least wait until she leaves the room to cry. Can you do that? _I swing my feet in an attempt to make the time she's spending in my room with me go faster. I'm going to burst in a minute. To distract myself some more, I start playing with the messiest, waviest strand of my hair ever.

"Well gosh!" Paula exclaims when she turns around and meets face-to-face with me. I drop my hair and lick my lip. _What does she want? _"Mrs. Meadows didn't mention that you were so gorgeous." I look away from her. It literally hurts to make eye contact with her right now. "You're so pretty…" She reaches her hand out and I know what she's aiming for. Everybody that meets me aims for the same thing. It's like they don't believe it so they have to touch it. "Do you mind if I...?" _At least she asks before she just touches it though. _Just because she had the decency to ask, I shrug my shoulders. "How long have you been growing your hair out?" Just as I suspected, she gathers it all into her hands and starts playing with it. "It's so… long and pretty."

"Thanks." I mumble to her again. I really don't think my hair is anything really special. Matter of fact, I think I'm going to cut it. It was really my grammy's most prized possession. She put a lot of time and energy into making sure my hair grew out to be so thick and long. I'm not sure if I even want it anymore. It's just hair.

"I love your eyes, too. You know, it's so rare to find somebody with brown hair and eyes that aren't brown. You usually have brown hair and brown eyes. It's so rare that somebody has brown hair and… green eyes? Oh look at me, gushing." She gives my hair one last run-through with her fingers and stops touching me completely. "You're just the cutest little thing I've ever seen." _She really shouldn't be so nice to me. Stop being nice. I really just want to hate this place. I want to hate this place so badly. _She's making it impossible to hate this place. "Well you can go ahead and get unpacked now. I'm going to go check on the baby and dinner. Be downstairs in half an hour." I just nod.

Once she finally leaves me alone, I look around the room again. _So this is home now. This is my home, until further notice. I have a foster mother, a foster dog, two foster sisters and two foster brothers. This is it, isn't it? _I lift my feet up and rest them on the bed with me. I scoot up so that I'll land correctly and lean back. My head rests on a soft pillow and I pull my legs up into my chest. _This is really it. No more Shane, no more Nicky, no more Matt. No more Miss Kelly. No Steph, no Leah, no Heather. No April, no Jackson. No Cristina or Meredith. No… Alex. Just me. _Just like I've been waiting to do ever since Paula left me alone, I suck a pretty deep breath into my lungs and when I let it out, tears come with it.

* * *

**Thurs, Oct 23, 2013**

**6:23 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Shane: **My mom told me not 2 text u until 2morrow bc u need time to settle in but I cracked. U ok?

**6:31 p.m.**

**Me: **get. me. out. of. here. :( :( :( :(

**6:33 p.m.**

**Shane: **O god is it bad?

**Me: **no, it's good. that's the bad thing!

**Shane: **?

**Me: **i'm gonna kill myself shane. its so nice here and i just cant deal.

**Shane: **Is anything happening tho? Are u ok and are they nice 2 u?

**Me: **no, yes, yes. help me pleassseeeee.

**Shane: **Well if they r nice 2 u then why do u want help j?

**Me: **bc i just want to hate this place and they won't let me. they make me sick.

**Shane: **j its ok. I'm just glad ur fine. What r they like? R u allowed to do things there?

**Me: **shane they're perfect & i can't take it! ok so there's a girl that's a senior and she's like really freaking nice. then there are two junior boys that are nice too and omg the mom is so perf. she makes dinner every night and she stays at home. theres a baby too and even the baby is super cute. helllllllllp.

**Shane: **Well r u allowed out of the house?

**Me: **no

**Shane: **No? why no? I thought u said u got 2 keep the car but ur not allowed out?

**Me: **i'm still "settling in" so i don't even have privileges yet. that sucks too.

**Me: **i gtg. shes bitching at me about having my cell phone at the table. i'll text you in a little while.

I shove my phone under the table, between my legs and pick up my fork. I'm not really hungry at the moment. Paula's been really nice to me and I don't want to insult her, but I really can't eat if I'm not hungry. And it's not that the spaghetti doesn't look appetizing, because it does. I just don't have much of an appetite. "That's another one of our rules. No phones at the table, please." Paula repeats herself as if I didn't just hear her yell at me for it a second ago. Resisting the urge to get smart, I twirl my fork around in my plate of spaghetti and act like I'm actually going to eat some of it. Sitting next to me, Alyssa is eating. Jaden and Jason are eating too. Hell, even Lilly's making a mess of her high chair. I'm just… not hungry. I probably couldn't even choke it down.

"So…" Alyssa turns and looks at me with her mouth full of spaghetti. _Please swallow before you attempt to talk to me. Ew. _"What sports did you play at your old school? Were you in any clubs? Did you have lots of friends?" The more I look at the preppy, senior girl, the more I really just want to slap her teeth down her throat. She seems like the kind of girl I'd hate. She's all cheerful and blonde and preppy and pretty and just… ugh. I can totally tell that she's not naturally blonde though. For one, her eyebrows are as dark as my hair is, her roots are coming through and her eyes are so dark brown that it's a wonder she can even see out of them. She's not naturally blonde.

_OMG! I totally played the fucking saxophone at my old school! I was totally the head cheerleader, I got the lead in every school play and not to mention, every boy on the football team drooled over me! I was so totally popular! _I respectfully put my fork down on my plate and take a small sip of the fruit punch in front of me. "Uh uh." I shake my head. _She's so nice that it's actually a little bit annoying. My god, I'd pay her a dollar to shut up._

"You went to Garfield, right?" One of the twins… Jacob, I think asks me. I nod the answer to that. "So are any of those rumors true, then? Is there really a floor with no cameras and no teacher supervision where everyone goes to make out during lunch? Are there really at least two drug-busts a week there?"

"…No?" _Don't talk about my school. _"There's never even been one drug-bust there, and I don't even know what floor you're talking about."

The other twin, Jason starts talking too. "What about the basketball team? I heard they recruit from other schools…"

"No."

"What's their play for this year?" Alyssa's question is the only one that doesn't make me want to freak out.

"I'm not sure."

"…Well I think you're gonna make lots of friends at Franklin tomorrow. Everyone's real nice and they—"

"Tomorrow?" I put my glass of juice down and raise my eyebrow.

"Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that to you." Paula wipes her mouth on a napkin and clears her throat. "You'll be starting school tomorrow. Mrs. Meadows thought enrolling you as soon as possible would be better for you, considering the fact that you're a really good student and all."

…And the fact that she didn't think to mention that to me says a lot about the type of forgetful person she is. I just don't even want to be here anymore. And I DON'T want to start a new school tomorrow, either.

* * *

**A/N: **If you're a really close reader that pays attention to detail, you might have noticed something in this chapter. If you noticed this, please DO NOT put it in the reviews, for the sake of those that DIDN'T notice it. If you're one of the people that didn't notice it, I promise you'll see it very, very, very soon. (in about 2 or 3 chapters or so). It's just a little hidden detail that's rather important for the future plot of this story. So, if you DID notice it, shhhhh ;) I'd like for at least some of you to be surprised by it.

And if you THINK you picked up on it, feel free to PM me. I'll let you know if what you noticed is correct or not. But I WON'T tell you what you should've picked up on. You'll find out what it is sooner than later.

Thanks for reading, thanks for reviewing, I love you guys!

-flawlesspeasant


	19. What Did I Do?

"I think she's ugly. I think her nose is way too big and she's probably really cocky." Up until about six seconds ago, I thought maybe they weren't meaning for me to hear everything they're saying about me. I thought for sure I was just being really nosy and I should stop eavesdropping on their conversation. But the more I sit here, listening to them, the more I realize that I'm wrong. I think they want me to hear them and they're being smart about it. Why else would they have a conversation for two straight periods about the new girl that they know nothing about? I may be ugly, but I'm not stupid. They're doing this on purpose. "She looks like a whore." Through childish laughter, they keep making snide comments. Of all places for them to sit at, they chose to sit right behind me. Of all things for them to talk about, they're talking about me. This is totally on purpose. _They're a lot bolder than the girls at Garfield, I give them that. At least they'll talk about you dead in your face. _"How many guys you think she's slept with? She looks cheap; like she'd sleep with them for a dollar."

I haven't even been in this damn school for three hours yet, and I've already got a fan club. These same girls have been talking trash on me the whole time I've been here. Franklin is way different than Garfield. I'm not in any advanced classes here. I'm group together with the "smart kids" and that's that. Things here are split in to three different groups. There are the advanced freshmen, the basic freshmen and the below basic freshmen. If you're in the advanced freshmen group, you're stuck with the same people all day. We take the same classes, we don't rotate and we're all together, ALL day. _I really wish I had brought my headphones. _I wasn't too sure on the policy about cell phones and headphones so I left my headphones back at the foster house for the day. Now that I left them, I really wish I had them. I don't care that they're talking about me; I just wish I didn't have to hear it.

"She even sounds like a slut. Jill is such a slut name." _Well it's a good thing my name isn't Jill, now isn't it? _"Do you think she hears us? Maybe she's deaf. Or maybe she's just stupid." That's all they've been saying about me. I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I'm weird, I look like a slut, my butt is fake, I'm too fat. It'd be a crime for them to say anything else about me, because they don't even know me. They never even took the liberty of asking me what my name is. "I'm leaning towards retarded. She's probably the most retarded-est retard on the planet." _Wow, make fun of retarded people. How badass! _I toss a red crayon back into the crayon basket and stare at the paper I'm coloring. I've never taken an art class in my entire life until today, and I realize what a terrible drawer I am. My heart is all lopsided and my bird's neck is too thin. I'm terrible.

"At least she attempted to dress classy. Who ever heard of a classy slut?" _Oh, my clothes now? At least it's something new. _If they consider what I'm wearing right now as classy, then I'd love to see what they think dressing up is. I'm wearing a pair of jeans and a black Victoria's Secret sweatshirt. Unless they count black converse sneakers as classy, then yeah; I'm dressed real classy. "Why do you suppose her hair is so long, Gabby?" _Hey, Gabby. Nice to finally learn your name. I'm Jo. _"It's probably because all the guys she sleeps with like to have something to grab onto while she's going down on them." _Well, that's original. Can't say I've ever heard that one before. A plus for effort on that one. _I stifle a big yawn and pick up a brown crayon. I'm going to attempt to draw a tree. Wish me luck.

As I start drawing a brown curved line for the bark of my tree, someone dramatically bumps into my chair and makes me screw up. "Whoops! Sorry, Jill." Rumpelstiltskin's voice is clearly meant in a mockery tone when she "apologizes" to me for bumping my chair. I didn't bother learning any of their names, so Rumpelstiltskin is her name for me. She has curly blonde hair and ugly grey eyes, and I think she looks like Rumpelstiltskin, so that's her name. "Maybe if you weren't so fat and didn't take up so much room…" Her little fans laugh like her rejoinder was the funniest thing they've ever heard. _Yep. Maybe if I wasn't so fat, you wouldn't have been so clumsy as to bump into me. Yep, it's totally my fault. Sorry I'm so fat._

Since I don't really give a damn about my "art project", I crumble the paper up into a ball and stand up to toss it in the garbage. I walk to the other end of the art room, near the art teacher's desk and toss the paper in the trashcan. I take another sheet of paper from the pile next to the easels and start trotting back to my seat. "She's from Garfield, so you know what that means. They practically teach classes on how to properly go down on boys at Garfield. That's probably why she was a straight A student." I put my paper down on the table and sit back down in the chair. _The fact that you're still talking shit and your jaws aren't tired tells me that you're probably the real MVP when it comes to giving boys head. _

Wally the Walrus stands up and waddles her way over towards me. I don't usually like to talk bad about people's weight, because I'm clearly not the skinniest chick in the world, but really. Wally has a lot of nerve talking about me being fat. She looks like she swallowed two of me. Wally the Walrus calls me fat while Rumpelstiltskin calls me ugly and Mouth from the South is commenting on how big of a slut I am. Meanwhile, Wally is the fat one, Rumpel is the ugliest girl in this room and Mouth from the South's jaws aren't tired of talking shit yet. "I need the crayons, Jill." She puts the open jar of paint she was carrying down inside the bin of crayons and takes the whole thing off my table and walks away with them. She only takes about three steps before she literally dumps the bin of crayons and paint down on my head and into my lap. _Are you serious? Don't you dare start crying, Jo. If you let these girls see you cry…_ "Oops… sorry, I guess I'm just being clumsy today. Don't worry, that paint comes out in the wash."

"She doesn't take showers, so it'll probably be there tomorrow, Bianca." Rumpelstiltskin and M.O.T.S are laughing so hysterically that everybody looks up and their eyes immediately go to me. I feel the green paint oozing down my cheek and the crayons are stuck in my messy, paint covered ponytail. "Well at least the paint's green. Now she can really look like Fiona, from Shrek."

"May I use the restroom?" I stand up and grab the hallpass, not even bothering for the teacher to excuse me. With my clean, un-painted hand, I swipe away a tear that fell out of my eye and sniff.

"AWWW… The poor baby's crying! Aww… It's okay, Fiona. The paint will come off… the green blends in with your skin!" Wally the Walrus taunts after me. The art teacher stands up from his desk to reprimand the girls but I don't even wait around to listen to what he says to them. Luckily for me, the bathroom is right at the end of the hall so I don't have to wonder around too far looking like the creature from black lagoon. _The thing is… if they got to know me, they might actually like me. I'm such a nice person to anyone that's nice to me. I'm so over Franklin already. This fucking sucks. And I'm not even crying because I'm upset, I'm crying because I'm so freaking irritated. _I'm irritated with everything. Like seriously, they were talking loud enough for the whole damn class to hear them. Why in the hell didn't the teacher do something about it from the jump? I wasn't the most popular thing in Garfield, but I never had that happen to me. I've never been… bullied before.

I turn on one of the faucets in the bathroom and take my hair out of my ponytail. I fish my cell phone out of my back pocket and check the time. _It's lunch time back at Garfield. _Because I know that it's lunchtime back home, I immediately dial Shane's number. _Please pick up, Shane. Pick up, pick up, pick up. _I stick my hand underneath the running water and once it's wet, I comb it through my paint-infested ponytail. The paint is coming out well, but it's taking so long to actually come out. I just can't believe it took them dumping paint on me for the teacher to do something about them. And he wasn't even paying attention, so I doubt he even saw the whole thing. Wally will probably tell him that it was an accident and he'll believe her.

"Hey, J!" Shane finally answers his phone. "We're all here! Me, Steph, Leah, Heather…" I can tell by the noisiness in the background that they're in the cafeteria. "Can you hear me?! You're on speaker."

"I fucking hate this, Shane." I'm literally bawling my eyes out right now. "Take me off speaker." I wipe my tears away as fast as they're falling. "I fucking hate this, man. I've only been here for like three hours and they already hate me." I hear Steph in the background ask him a question that he ignores. "They keep talking about me and stuff and they keep calling me Jill and Fiona… like Fiona from Shrek. They even dumped paint in my hair, Shane. And the one guy in the hallway whistled at me… like I'm a fucking dog. This is a crock of bullshit."

"Where are you at right now?"

"I'm in the freaking bathroom, cleaning paint out of my hair!" I snivel and wipe my eyes some more. "And the teacher didn't even do shit about it. I left the room, crying."

"Don't let them make you cry, J. They're not worth it. They don't know you. Don't let them upset you."

"I'm not even crying because I'm upset. I'm just so fucking mad right now. Like I just really want to break someone's fucking face…" When the tears stop falling, I resume cleaning paint out of my hair. "Like I'm shaking, Shane. I'm shaking so bad right now and I'm so fucking mad… I like… I know what I want to do, but I can't do it…"

"Well J, they're messing with you. I don't care what anyone says, they're messing with you. They can't keep screwing with you and just expect you to take it. Did you stand up for yourself?"

"No Shane. If I stand up for myself, I really might kill someone. I'm just not in the mood. I'm trying so hard right now… I can't stop shaking long enough to get this shit out of my hair. It's pissing me off that the teacher didn't even do shit! Like they were calling me a whore and a slut and shit all in front of the class and he didn't do anything! This school is fucking bullshit, I'm so fucking… I'm so fucking over this goddamn school. I'm fucking over it. I'm not going to keep fucking crying in fucking bathrooms and shit and I'm just going to fucking snap… I'm going to snap."

"Chill with the cusswords, Jojo. Stop cussing so much. They're bringing you out of your character and that's not cool. The whole cussing and stuff isn't you. Hold on one second, okay?" I mumble an "okay" and keep scrubbing this paint out of my hair. "You still there, J?" I hit him with an "mhm" and wash my hand off from all this green stuff. "You're on speaker again. Say hi to everyone."

"I'm having a real freaking crisis here, SHANE. I don't want to talk to anyone but you right—"

Simultaneously, I hear a group of people shout "HAIRBALL!", "JO!", "PONYTAIL", and "WILSON!" _Oh my god, GUYS! _

I can't help but smile at everyone's hello. Dammit, I really miss Garfield. I want to go back to Garfield so bad… "Hey guys!" I call out into my phone through a smile.

"What are they doing to you over there?!" April sounds like she legit might bust out in tears here.

"Yeah, I know Wilson. We'll all come over there and have a word with a couple Franklin bitches." Meredith sounds slightly more serious than April does, but the intensity is still the same.

"I'm fine, guys." I finally got all the paint out of my hair, so I throw it up into a half-wet bun. "I just miss it back at home."

"We miss you and your shedding too, Hairbally." Cristina's calling me "Hairball" used to bother me but I can see that it's a term of endearment now and I kind of like it.

"Alright, phone's mine now." _Is that Alex? Please tell me that's him. _I can tell they took me off speaker because I don't hear everyone as well as I did a second ago. "What's going on over there? Ross said you're over there crying in bathrooms. Whose ass am I kicking?" _It is. It really is. Oh god._

"It's nothing. This group of girls is messing with me pretty bad." I walk into a stall and sit down on the toilet seat. "They keep calling me names and dumping paint in my hair. I just miss it back there."

"Well that's crap. You're there to get an education, and they should not be able to do shit like that while you're there. Where the hell was the teacher?"

"Just sitting there, ignoring everything."

"That's bull." He actually sounds fired up about this. "Any boys over there saying shit?"

"No." I just really, really wish I were home. "Well, this random in the hallway whistled at me but it wasn't really like a… whistle. It was kind of like… a dog whistle, to get my attention."

"What's his name?"

"I don't know anybody's name, Alex."

"Well if he whistles at you again, make sure you tell him that you have a boyfriend that benches 325, wrestles and can easily kick his ass. I mean that." I nod, as if he can see me. "…What are you wearing over there?"

"…Now?"

"No, yesterday. Of course now! What are you wearing?"

"…Clothes?"

"What KIND of clothes?"

"Jeans and a hoodie."

"And? Is that it?"

"….Underwear and a bra?"

"What kind of SHOES, Jo?"

"Converse."

"…How tight are your jeans?"

"They're pretty loose."

"You're not showing your ass off, are you?"

"I don't think so?"

"Better not be." I take the phone away from my ear for a second to check the time. I've been in the bathroom for about six minutes now. I'd better make my way back down the hall before the art teacher sends somebody to come looking for me. "I thought we agreed that you'd send me pictures of your outfits every day. I swear we had a deal."

"Look, it slipped my mind this morning. You just have to trust me. I'm not flaunting anything around." I get up off the toilet seat and walk out of the stall. "I'm not the only one that breaks promises, either. You promised that you'd text me throughout the day and you haven't."

"I was trying to give it at least one day. I didn't want you to get into trouble over there for being on your phone in class. This is all beside the point anyway. Don't forget to tell me what you're wearing over there again. Boys get excited over fresh meat, and I don't want any of them looking."

"Alex, I know. I have to dress like a nun and cover up from chin to ankle, I know. I wouldn't walk out the house dressed like a two dollar hooker." _It's nice that he cares if I get looked at, though. _"My jeans are loose and they're pulled all the way up on my waist. My hoodie is baggy and it covers up all exposed skin from my waist up. My shoes are covering up every single toe. I even wore granny-panties and a sports bra. I'm not flaunting anything, I promise."

"It's not you that I don't trust. Just promise me you'll keep your eyes and ears open. Tell me if you get any looks or comments, and try to learn their names for me. And stay out of trouble over there. Don't do anything there that you wouldn't do here."

"I won't. I'm gonna go now, before the art teacher sends someone looking for me. Tell Shane I said that I'll call him later. And I'll text you as soon as I go to lunch."

"Alright. Like I said, just take it easy over there… oh, and before you go, am I gonna see you tonight?"

"…Probably not. I don't have privileges yet, so I'm not really allowed to go anywhere. I have to earn privileges. I don't think I'll be allowed to go back to Garfield tonight. Maybe next weekend or something. Do good in your game tonight for me, though."

"Damn. I was looking forward to seeing you. But I'll just call you later as soon as I get home. I'll try to score for you."

"Alright. I've gotta go now. …Miss you." _Miss you? Yeah, because "Love you" is a total stretch. Too early to tell him that, even if I feel like I should. I do love him. I love him a lot. But I don't think it's that kind of love just yet. I think it's the kind of love that's like… I would be heartbroken if something happened to him. But I don't think it's the kind of take-a-bullet-between-the-eyes-for-you love yet. So yeah… Miss you will suffice._

"I miss ya too." He sort of mumbles that into the phone. He's making progress, I must say. Being that he's not really the mushy type, I wasn't expecting him to tell me that he misses me too. I especially wasn't expecting it since he's in a cafeteria full of all his friends there to witness him being mushy.

I really didn't think I was going to miss Garfield this much.

* * *

Franklin High School is really screwed up, in more ways than just one. You would think that being the new kid in school, I'd at least have somebody to show me around; but no. I have to navigate everything on my own. It's a good thing that I'm not even hungry, otherwise lunchtime would probably be a real bitch. When I get to the cafeteria carrying my books in my hand because I don't have a locker yet, I just stand near the entrance, looking around. _I'll be damned if I sit in here today. The last thing I need is to accidentally sit in somebody's seat and cause myself any more embarrassment for the day. I've already got paint dumped in my hair, something tells me that nacho cheese or ketchup will be next. _I lean against a pillar and look down at my schedule. After lunch, I go to advanced geometry.

I kind of wish I had lunch with the twins or Alyssa. Freshman and sophomores eat lunch together here and juniors and seniors eat together. Franklin isn't nearly as big a school as Garfield, and somehow Garfield still manages to shove every single grade into our cafeteria at once. I'd at least like to have lunch with someone that I know. The food back home at Garfield isn't very good, but it at least smells better than the food here at Franklin. I honestly just want to go back to the foster house. I'm already over being here. I fold my schedule back up into a small square and stuff it back in my pocket. On the other hand, I kind of like the fact that I've been left to figure things out on my own. Granted, I've been late to all four of my morning classes because I didn't know where they were, but at least I'm alone. I don't really care to make friends here and the less interaction the better.

_I would so totally text Alex right now but I don't want to make it seem like I'm being all pushy. I'll give lunch a solid ten minutes before I cave in and start texting him. Just ten minutes. _I take my phone out of my pocket so I can time the ten minutes out, plus I want to make it seem like I'm busy and not just being a loner standing over here against a wall by myself. Some taller, dark-skinned boy approaches me with a menacing smile on his face. He looks kind of nice, but I bury my nose in my phone and pretend to be busy. He has on a pair of blue jeans and a black and white Nike hoodie. He looks like he's a nice kid. He stops his graceful walking stride about two feet in front of me and just…stands there. _Can I help you? _I slowly look up from my phone and meet his dark brown eyes.

"I saw your ad." He doesn't even introduce himself before he starts talking to me about random stuff. He busts out in serious laughter in response to the laughter coming from the group of boys standing behind him. _What the hell is he even talking about? _"I won't lie, I'm pretty easily won over… but can I at least get your name before we do this thing?" _Seriously, what is he even talking about? I'm so lost. Is this just a weird way of asking for my name? I mean, all he wants to know is my name… right?_

I adjust my books in my tired arms and flip my hair out of my face. "…I'm Jo." Behind him, I see that same group of boys just hysterically laughing as if I'm missing part of an inside joke. I'm so confused.

"Right." He nods twice at me as if he's dismissing even learning my name and he gives me that same, menacing, immature smile again. Maybe he's not as nice as I thought… Or maybe I'm just as confused as I want to be. "I have a few questions. Do you spit, or swallow?" _Did he just… if he means… what the… _I raise my eyebrow, questioning what the hell he just asked me. I want to believe that he didn't just… but I think he did. Both him and his little friends behind him giggle when I don't answer the question. "Do you gag a lot? Gagging is hot…" I take my bottom lip between my two teeth and take a deep breath. If I wasn't sure what he was implying by his first question, I'm sure right now.

Before the tears come again, I turn my back away from him and the group of girls and walk to the nearest restroom. _Come ON. How much are they going to dish out to me? I'm about halfway past my breaking point, almost on a full tank of about-to-go-crazy. I was alright with it just being that group of three girls picking with me, but it's boys now too? And what they're saying about me? What he just had the balls to ask me? Really? _I put my stack of books down on the sink and put my head down. _Please calm down, Jo. Just calm down. It's not that big of a deal. You're not weak, you can take them. You're not weak. _When my hair falls to the side of my shoulder from my head being down, I hear soft crinkling noises, like paper's being ruffled. _Is there a… _I reach to the back of my hoodie and snatch a large piece of notebook paper off it. _How long has this been here? How did I not notice it? _I hold the paper in front of my face and read it aloud to myself. "I give blow jobs for ten cents. See me at lunch for more details…" I roll my eyes. "Seriously?" I toss the paper in the trashcan and rest my cheek flat against the cool tile-covered wall. _No wonder he said he saw my ad. No wonder he started asking me questions like that. Great. Now the whole school probably thinks I'm some easy slut._

"Did you see the look on Fiona's face when Corey asked her if she spits or swallows? My god, I wish I had my camera for that one." _Then the clouds opened up and god said, "I hate you, Josephine." _I hear the familiar voices approaching the bathroom so I quickly disappear into the closest stall. "She probably swallows… that's why her teeth are so white." Rumpelstiltskin's voice is now inside of the bathroom as are the footsteps of Mouth and Wally. "Do you see that thing on the side of her mouth? It's probably from her having herpes so many times." _It's called a beauty mark… and they're all over my body, not just by my mouth, actually._

"Did you guys hear her real name? It's not Jill, she told Corey it's Jo. You know how many nicknames can come from that?" Mouth of the South is all cheerful and giddy, like a little kid in a candy store. "Blow Job Jo… Jo the Ho... I have so many." _Well aren't you creative? I kind of like Blow Job Jo. That's cute. _"Her name fits her. She's so manly, it only makes sense that she has a manly name."

"When she throws up… they probably call the sperm bank. That's how she buys all of her clothes. She's actually a foster kid, you know that? She's Alyssa Myers' foster sister. How pathetic, right? She's poor, so she probably has to go down on guys just to buy herself decent clothes. Plus, swallowing just makes it easier for her to donate to the sperm bank." I bite my lip so hard. I think I'm going to cry again. I can feel the tears welling up in my eyes, about to spew over onto my cheeks. _I'm not a slut. I've never even done anything like that with anyone. Why would they even jump to that conclusion? Did I say something for them to think that I'm a whore? Because they know nothing about me. Jumping to a conclusion like calling someone a slut that you barely even know is just crazy to me._

"She's not even pretty. I don't get all the juniors talking about how hot she is, because I literally just don't see it." _Juniors are talking about me? What are they saying? _"I think she looks like Fiona. She's big, fat and ugly. She's wearing that hoodie to hide all her fat rolls. I would kill myself if I ever looked like that. The only thing that's even KIND of pretty is her eyes, and we all know that those are contacts. NOBODY has hair that dark with eyes that light. Other than her eyes, she's so freaking ugly. We should've put a sign on her back that said 'Don't get too close to the hungry, hungry hippo.'" _Why is WALLY THE WALRUS, of all people talking about me being fat? I'm not even fat! I seriously can't take this anymore…_

I'm crying; there are tears all over my face. Once again, they're not sadness tears. They're frustration tears. I'm so freaking irritated right now. _You know what? They're not even giving you a chance. Why do they even deserve you holding back? _My tank is completely full and I'm PAST my breaking point. I quickly slide the latch-lock on the stall door I'm in and fling it open. "You guys have literally been talking SHIT on me all damn morning. I'm right here, now. Whatever you have to say to me, just say it." I'm glad the tears in my eyes aren't making my voice shaky or crackly. I'm just so fed up with all this bullshit, and whatever they have to say, they can just say it. "Instead of dumping paint and crayons on me and sticking notes on my back, just say whatever you have to say about me to my face."

All of their mouths are dropped open. Wally the Walrus starts laughing immediately and she steps back, away from me. "Well since you heard every last bit of our conversation, we don't really have much else to say, now do we? If we all know you're a skank, you should know that too, right?"

"HOW am I whore? You guys don't know anything about me!" I throw my hands up and raise my voice, no matter how hard I tried not to. "I could see if I've been going here my entire life and you guys wanted to call me a whore, but I literally JUST got here! Can you hop off my shit for TWO seconds?"

"Oh look, Fiona has balls." Rumpelstiltskin takes a step towards me. "You better watch who you're talking to, Fiona. If we think you're a whore, you're a whore. And there's nothing you can do about it. Oh, and maybe you should wipe the herpes off your lip."

"…Is that the best you got?" I cross my arms over my chest and tap my foot. "Because so far, all I've heard was you call me fat, call me ugly and call me a slut. Can't you stop recycling your insults and try some new ones? I mean, considering the fact that you're the size of a walrus, you're about as attractive as a dog and your mouth never stops running." _Cool it, Jo. No more smart remarks. They'll jump you. You've never been in a fight before. Just cool it. Calm down._

"Newsflash bitch, if I'm fat, you're a COW. Take off that hoodie if you think you're oh so much skinnier than I am. You fat bitch. You look like Shrek's wife. Actually, Fiona's prettier than you."

"…What are you, a size thirty? At least I can fit into an expensive hoodie without ripping it."

M.O.T.S. gasps and her jaw drops. "…Bianca, she just really called you out. Oh my god, you can't let her get away with that…"

"Here, hold my purse." Wally the Walrus hands her purse to Rumpelstiltskin and starts putting her hair up into a ponytail. _All she has to do is sit on you, Jo. If she sits on you… you're dead. You're not even a fighter… you've never been in a fight before. You don't even know how to fight! And she's trying to fight you… she's like twice your size. _"I sure hope you can back up that smart mouth, bitch."

I tuck my hands inside the front pocket of my hoodie and sniff as a couple more angry tears fall. I don't even want to fight her. I don't want to. I just want them to leave me alone. But by all means, I'm NOT a punk, and I WILL defend myself if she hits me. I just really hope she doesn't hit me… I just rock back and forth on my feet, waiting for her to do something. I'm not throwing the first punch. What's the point? I don't want to fight her anyway. Why would I hit first?

"You better get her, Bianca." M.O.T.S. has her cell phone out and ready to record whatever happens. Wow, this just goes to show how immature these girls really are. The first thing that they want to do is fight me, as soon as I stand up for myself. And as if fighting isn't immature enough, they want to record it? Whatever, I don't have time for this. This is so petty. "You can't just let her talk about you like that."

The fat one that wants to fight me rolls up the sleeves of her t-shirt and kicks off her slide-on sandals so she's just in her socks. I'm literally just standing here with my back in a corner and my hands in my hoodie pocket. I won't even try to fake like I know how to fight. The truth is, I've never been in a fist fight ever before and I really don't want to get into one today. I'm terribly outnumbered here and plus, the girl has about a hundred pounds over me. I just wanted to stand up for myself, I never said I wanted to fight. _Remember what Shane said. Don't let them take you out of your character. Remember what Alex said. Don't get into any trouble. These girls aren't worth anything to you. _I take my hands out of my pocket and walk over to the sink to grab my books. I said what I had to say to those girls and I'm on my way now. I stuff all the books into my arms and start to walk out of the bathroom.

"Oh look, Bianca. She's running scared! She doesn't want to fight!" The one with the camera phone rolling follows me out into the hallway. "She talks all tough but when it comes down to it, she's too scared to stay and fight."

"I'm not scared." I mumble and that's honestly the truth. I'm not afraid of any of them. I just think fighting is stupid and doesn't solve any problems and I'm not going to let them get me out of my character over something like this. It's just stupid.

"If you're not scared, then why are you walking away?" The fat one follows both me and the one with the camera out of the bathroom and into the hallway, too. Rumpelstiltskin isn't far behind us. I stop walking to face them and let them know that this isn't a matter of me being afraid of them. This is just me walking away to avoid a fight. All three of them crowd me, though. "You're nothing but a scared little bitch."

"No, I'm just more mature than all of this." I squeeze my books close to my body and tap my foot yet again. "This is the pettiest thing I've ever heard of. I'm just not going to argue with people that know nothing about what they're talking about. So just shut up and let me carry on with my day."

"Make me." She forcibly slaps my books out of my hands and they fall in a loud clatter to the floor. "You had a lot to say in the bathroom and you don't have shit to say now that I'm taking action. Coward." I stick my hands back in my hoodie pocket and sway back and forth, side to side just waiting for her to get sick of hurling meaningless insults at me. Now by this time, word got out that the new girl is arguing with three of the biggest, baddest freshmen in the school and not surprisingly, a medium-sized crowd of people have gathered around us. Bianca (Wally) is standing no more than two feet away from me still completely ready to fight and I'm standing across form her with my hands in my pocket and an expressionless face. "You're nothing but a pussy." I swear, time slows down for a minute, as if she isn't really doing what I THINK she's doing. She sniffs hard, hocks up a disgusting, thick wad of spit in her mouth and spits it like a man at me. The hocker of spit lands on my hoodie.

"OOOOOHHHH!" The crowd of people around us swoons at that.

_No she fucking didn't. I'm going to pretend like she didn't just spit on me like I THINK she just did. I think she just spit on me. I think, resting on the breast part of my hoodie is a nasty clump of her SPIT. I think… _I don't even move my head. I move my eyes just to see if the spit is really there. Yeah, it's there. _Well, at least I can say that I really did try to stay out of trouble. I can tell Shane that I attempted to not be brought out of my character. I can tell Alex that I really tried HARD to stay out of trouble. Yeah, I tried. _I bawl my hand up into a tight, firm fist and heave one good, HARD punch at her. I think I hit her in the teeth because my fist hit something really hard and my knuckle is bleeding.

"OH CRAP, BIANCA! GET HER!" Is the last thing I hear from the crowd around us before I just… see red. Literally, my eyes are seeing nothing but red. It's like I have tunnel vision, because the only thing I can see right now is her face connecting again and again and again with my fist. _She fucking spit on me. She needs to fucking die. _She's starting to back away from me which I DON'T like. _Don't fucking back away. Don't back away, take this. You dished it out now you better handle it. _Even though she has her hair in a high bun, I wrap my hand TIGHT around it and grab it so she's NOT going anywhere. _I'm going to fucking kill her. I swear I might kill her. _My fist is connecting with something soft now, and it's all wet. "OH MY GOD, HER NOSE! HER NOSE!"

Aside from the anger pulsating and rushing through my veins, I feel somebody tug on me from my lower back and try to pull me away from her. "GET OFF ME!" I don't know WHO just grabbed me, but I fling back one fist and connect with something on their body and they're not trying to pull me away anymore. Bianca falls down flat on her back on the ground and… like an animal or something, I get on top of her. I don't even see blood on her face. I don't see blood. To me, her face is clean and she doesn't have anything more than a scratch. _I want blood. _I hold her face down with my less-dominant hand and punch her square in the nose with my strong one. "Bitch, you don't fucking spit on me and get away with it!" I'm mumbling under my breath. "I don't know who the…" I feel her give me one hard kick in the stomach but it didn't even hurt. I'm not feeling anything but anger right now. I grab her torn out bun of hair again and slam her head back against the ground, just for kicking me in my stomach. "Who the fuck do you think you are?!"

"GET HER OFF OF HER!" I see someone's phone go flying across the ground out of the corner of my eye. Someone's strong, muscular hands lifts me off Bianca's body but whoever it is, they're unable to get a good grip on me. "BREAK THIS UP! BREAK THIS UP!"

"SHE SPIT ON ME!" I throw an elbow back into the abdomen of whoever's got their arms around me and pounce back on top of Bianca. Her face is still completely clean for some reason. Why am I not drawing blood? I want blood. I want blood, bad. Someone else grabs my arms and pulls me as hard as they can away from her. _That's fine. You can have my hands, I don't give a fuck. _I aim my kick out just perfectly and connect with her face, right in her jaw with the heel of my foot. "DON'T YOU EVER FUCKING SPIT ON ME AGAIN IN YOUR LIFE!"

"MISS WILSON, OFFICE, NOW!" A man's voice is literally SCREAMING in my ear as he grabs onto my hoodie.

"GET OFF ME!" Luckily I'm wearing a tank top underneath of my hoodie, because I literally take it off so he will get OFF me. I don't think I'd care if I had a tank top on or not. I'd still take the hoodie off even if I had just my bra on underneath of it, the tank top was just a nice little incentive. Once I'm free from the man's grasp, I go after Bianca again, who's still lying on the ground. Before I can get to her though, the same man grabs me up again. I feel my tank top lift up and my entire torso is exposed to the whole school, but guess what? I don't care. _If you don't get off me, dude…. _"I SAID GET OFF ME! LET ME GO! SHE FUCKING…" I throw a blind punch and connect with something hard. My clean hand is all wet now too.

"GET MR. PETERSON! NOW!" A woman's voice barks orders out now and she puts her arms around mine to restrain me. "YOU NEED TO CALM DOWN!" Both she and the man that I took off my hoodie to get away from forcibly push me up against a wall. The woman has one arm and the man has the other. "CALM DOWN!"

_I really CAN'T calm down. I can't… I can't calm down. My entire body is just shaking and I'm so hot and sweaty. I can't calm down… oh my god, I can't calm down. I haven't done this in so long… I can't calm down. I'm so scared… I'm so scared. I can't calm down… I can't calm down. I can't. Oh my god, I can't. _My hands shake and so do my legs. I'm going to HURT somebody if they don't let me go. I'm going to HURT SOMEONE. "LET. ME. GO." I say, talking through my teeth that are clenched shut. _Please calm down, Jo. It's over… it's over. Calm down. Please calm down. Oh god. I need Shane. I need Shane or grammy. They're the only two that can do it. What is it that Shane used to do to calm you down? What did grammy used to do? You have GOT to chill out. Chill out…._

I'm just so manic right now. I haven't gotten like this is a REAL long time. Sure, I've gotten angry lately, but it hasn't been this bad… in a really, really long time. What do I do? I don't usually escalate like this. _But she spit on me! _I take a very deep breath and hold it. _Grammy used to sing the numbers song to me when I got like this. I don't remember the numbers song… only she knew it. It's been THAT long since I've gotten this bad. SING SOMETHING, JO. You need to calm down. I'm so scared. Think about something, anything! _I bawl both my hands into fists and bite my lip. _…Think about him. Think about his goofy, light brown salad bowl haircut and his toothless grin. Think about him in that cute little Seahawks jersey. He was so cute in that yearbook picture. Think about him… he told you not to get into trouble. Think about him… calm down, for him._

As I'm calming down, I start to realize what a mess I made. The school nurse is hovering over Bianca's body. She's lying flat on the ground, motionless. Her face is so deep, crimson red that I can't even recognize her actual skin color. Her head is lying in a fairly deep pool of blood. _You WERE drawing blood, idiot. That's why your hands were wet. _The nurse is propping her head up with white towels and she still hasn't moved. _Oh god… oh god, oh god. Please don't be dead. Please don't be dead. _I have blood all over my hands, all the way up to the fold in my forearm. _I really hope I didn't just… what did I do?_

_Oh my god, what did I do?_


	20. About Time

**A/N: **Remember what I said about Calzona playing a very important part in this story. Remember what I said about the time passing by so quickly, due to Jo's "blocking". Also, Remember what I said about that tiny little detail that you should have picked up on. All three things are a lot more obvious in this chapter. Happy reading!

* * *

_I'm really starting to hate you. I'm really starting to not even want to deal with you anymore. I can't even explain how… scared of you I am. I don't even recognize you anymore. You're not… you. Come on, Jo… what's going on? You're not this kind of person… are you? You're scaring me. You're scaring me… _I should really stop walking and sit down for a minute. I'm starting to feel lightheaded from crying so much. I just don't know what I should do anymore. I'm not this person. I'm not this person that brutally attacks someone like that. I'm so ashamed and afraid of whom I'm starting to be. I don't like myself very much. _You're not the person that breaks some girl's jaw. You're not the person that breaks some girl's nose. For god's sake, you're not that person that… does what you just spent ten minutes in the bathroom doing. That's not you. You don't break people's faces, do what you just did to yourself and run away. Who are you?_

I glance up the street to see if any traffic is coming before I cross. Maybe I'd be better off crossing in the middle of traffic. Getting hit by a truck has to be less painful than this. _See?! Stop that! That's not you… _I should've just taken the help when I could. If I would've taken it when it was offered to me, I wouldn't be spending the evening walking five miles into town. I should've just taken it when I could've. _I just really need a miracle. I need something to happen and make it to where I'm magically okay. _I've never been suspended from school before, and now I'm suspended for five days. I've never even had so much as a minor violation with the law, and now I'm having charges pressed against me. I just really want to talk to my grandmother. I want to hear her voice, telling me exactly what to do. I'm doing what I think she'd want me to do, but I don't know if it's actually what she'd want. _You're almost there. You're almost there…_

I stop walking for a moment, just so an ambulance truck can pass by me. When it's out of my way, I quickly and quietly round the slight corner into the parking lot and trudge through deep puddles up the walkway. I don't think this walk would have been half had had I actually known exactly how to get here from the Myers' house. And the fact that it started pouring down raining on me didn't much help either. Whatever, I'm here now and that's all that really matters. When I get to them, the automatic doors open up promptly for me and thankfully, I'm thrust into warm, heat-infested air. It smells like fresh paint and band-aids in here. It's busy, of course. People are rushing around and around, barking orders at one another. I belong here, don't I? This is probably where Paula was going to bring me anyway.

I'm not quite sure how this actually works. I mean, I got myself here; but now that I'm here, I don't really know what to do. Despite every effort and attempt I've made to forget that night, here I am, trying to remember exactly what happened when I got here. I remember being brought to this exact same area, but I was emergent that night. I'm not bleeding or half past dead or anything today. Maybe I am in the wrong place. I know who will know what to do with me. If I could find her… I take the soaking-wet hood of my sweatshirt down and slosh in my wet shoes over to the service desk._ I hope I don't need parental or guardian consent to be here. _I softly clear, then swallow a lump in my throat. "E…Excuse me?" The receptionist looks up from the computer she's busily typing on and adjusts her glasses. "I just… have a…um, a question."

"What can I help you with, sweetie?" Her bouncy, curly, bleached-blonde hair falls just past her shoulders and she nudges her glasses up to the base of her nose with her index finger.

"I… I was here last weekend." A bead of rainwater drips down the middle of my back and gives me the chills. "And I was wondering…" In the pocket of my sweatshirt, I twiddle my thumbs nervously. "I don't really remember the names of the doctors I saw… but I was wondering if maybe I could see one of them again? I'll…wait, until one of them is available. But I just really need to see one of them… please."

"Right… and what'd you say your last name is?" She starts typing on the computer again.

"I didn't, but it's Wilson. Jo Wilson." _WHY can't I remember their names? I remember what they look like. I remember thinking that I'd never see either of them again. But their names are completely blank to me. _

"And your birthday is?"

"September 7th… of 1997."

"Honey, do you have a parent with you? Or a legal guardian?" She cranes her neck to see if there's anyone behind me.

"No." I shake my head. "…I just really need to see a doctor. Trust me." I look down at the floor and rub my lips together. The only mark on me from the fight earlier is a deep cut down the middle of my bottom lip. I think I got it when she was trying to get me off her, before I did all the damage. My back and my arms are kind of sore from being restrained and slammed into the wall, but those are bearable. I just really hope I'm able to see one of the two doctors I saw the last time I was here.

"…Okay." The receptionist stays quiet for a moment while she scrolls through something on the computer monitor. "Well, you're under eighteen so I'm guessing you saw one of our pediatricians." She keeps scrolling through her computer. "You were treated for injuries dealing with your hands, is that right?"

"Yes."

"Yep, you were treated by Dr. Robbins and Dr. Torres, does that ring a bell?"

"Yeah." I nod. _That's who they were. Yeah. I remember them now. _"I don't… really know if they'll remember me, but could you just tell them that I really, really need to see them?"

"As soon as one of them becomes available, I will page them. Why don't you have a seat in the waiting area, in the meantime? And do you have a number that I can contact your parents at?"

"I don't have parents." I mumble and start walking over towards the waiting area. I take a seat in a chair next to a table with a pile of magazines on it and hold my head with my hand. Both sets of my knuckles are really red and bruised around the stitches from how hard I was punching that girl. They don't hurt too badly, though. The worst thing about right now is that I'm freezing cold sitting in these wet clothes. By now, Paula's probably looking for me. I know it was wrong to leave the house without her knowing, but I wasn't just going to sit around and wait to get kicked out. I overheard her talking to the social worker when she had to come pick me up from school. Their conversation has been playing over and over again in my head ever since.

"_I thought you said she wasn't dangerous."_

"_She's not."_

"_She just sent a 200 pound girl to the hospital with a broken nose, a broken jaw and a cracked skull. She sounds pretty dangerous to me."_

"_This is all part of her grieving process. She still needs adequate time to cope. Maybe enrolling her in school so soon wasn't the right choice."_

"_I can't have someone like that in my house, around my children."_

If it helps, I really am sorry for what I did to that girl. I feel horribly about it and I wish it never happened. I know I can't sit in front of a judge at my court hearing and tell them that "I wish it never happened", but I really do wish that. Today was singlehandedly the scariest moment of my entire life. I didn't know if I was going to be able to stop… I wasn't supposed to listen in to the cops when they came to the house to file the charges against me, but I did. They said I almost KILLED her. They said… they said if I had hit her just one more time… if I had bashed her head off the ground just a LITTLE bit harder… I would've killed her. I never meant for it to go that far, I swear. I got so scared… I didn't know if I was going to be able to stop. And now what am I supposed to do?

The school's pressing assault and harassment charges against me, the girl's parents are pressing charges against me for attempted murder… what am I supposed to do? I've never even had so much as a minor run in with the law, and now I could possibly be going to juvenile? I've never even had a single detention in my life, and now I'm suspended for five days, possibly facing expulsion? I just never meant for this to get this bad. Please, take me back to last week. Take me back to when the only worry I had in the world was about what to wear with Alex's jersey. Take me back to when I was pissed that my boyfriend wouldn't hug me in public. Take me back to screaming, cheering and laughing at the game with April. Take me back to live with Shane. How did things get this bad?

I really just hope they let me go with a slap on the wrist for what I've done. I never meant for her to get that hurt. She wanted to fight me. She spit on me. I've never even had a fist fight until today, and I didn't even know that I was capable of that. Okay, I DID know that I was capable of causing that much damage, but I never thought I'd actually do that. I'm still a good kid, aren't I? I'm still an honor student, right? And where am I supposed to stay now? The social worker said herself that it's really hard to place violent children in homes. The Myers' don't want me anymore. So now where do I go? What if I can't be placed anywhere else? They refuse to let me stay with Shane. I really just wish I could talk to either Alex or Shane. I can't text either one of them because Paula confiscated my phone. Something about me being grounded, I guess. I'm falling apart.

"I wasn't expecting to see you again so soon. What'd you do?" The same super gorgeous, tan-skinned, long deep brown haired doctor that treated my hands the first time I was here stands in front of me. She puts a white electronic device in her coat pocket and flashes me her perfect, pearly white teeth again. "Punch another truck?" _She remembers me..._

"Hi." I smile at her despite the fact that all I want to do is break down and cry. I just really want to seem pleasant so she doesn't think I'm bratty. "No, there's nothing really wrong with me but I…" I exhale a deep breath and look up at her. "I think I'm ready for that psychiatrist thing now."

"Where's your mom?"

"I don't have a mother… I never did." I look down at the ground because I can't stand to look her in her eye. She's been so nice to me and I interrupted her job for nothing, I think.

"…Tall, African-American lady with short black hair that you were with last time? She's not here?"

"She's not my mother." I'm still looking down at the ground, ashamed. "Can you just help me? Please? I need someone's help…"

"I can't admit you to psych without your parent's consent. You are a minor."

"Right… I'm sorry." I pull myself together and get up out of the chair I was sitting in. I knew there was going to be a problem with me coming here alone. I just thought that if I could find someone that knew me, that dealt with me before… maybe I'd get lucky or something. I'm on a roll with being stupid today. "..But if I come back… with someone…"

"…Let me page Dr. Robbins. Come on." I can tell that she's a mother herself, because the way she grabs my arm and pulls me away, out of the waiting room is just so motherly. It's something Shane's mom would do to me. "We can start by getting you out of these wet clothes… and you have to have somebody I can call to be here for you." She opens up the door to a room and leads me inside it. "I can't just keep you here without anyone knowing you're here. I mean… I could, but then that would just be bad. So if you have a legal guardian or someone over eighteen that I can call and let them know where you are, that would be nice. Do you have that woman's number?"

"…I have a foster mom, but please don't call her. She doesn't want me anymore anyway and if I go back there, I'm just going to get kicked out anyway." I take a seat up on the exam table and stifle a yawn. I haven't properly slept since last week. I haven't eaten anything since I drank that glass of coffee back at Shane's house last weekend. I'm not hungry but I sure am tired. I've just not been comfortable sleeping anywhere lately. "I just really, really need to be here."

"Okay, and aside from putting your fists through glass windows, what makes you think you need to be here? What makes you think you need to be admitted to psych?" She's very gentle with the way she grabs my hands and examines the old stitches she put in for me. "…This bruising is fresh. What'd you punch this time?"

"…A girl." The tears that fall from my eyes are so hot that they burn my cheeks a little, but it feels good. "I got into a fight… and I just really need to be here." I wipe my cheeks off with the hand she's not looking at.

"Start from the beginning, kid." She pulls a stool over and sits down in front of me. "Because fighting doesn't seem like a reason you'd be admitting yourself into psych."

"I started a new school today." I look down and watch her while she twists and turns my hands to see where the bruises are the worst at. "This group of girls was picking on me all day and it came to a head at lunch time. One of them really wanted to fight me and I didn't want to fight her so I walked away. And when I walked away, she spit on me. And it got really, really bad from there. She's in the hospital with a broken nose, a concussion, a broken jaw and a cracked skull. All because I didn't know when to stop hitting her…"

"Well you know…spitting on someone is assault with a deadly weapon. A person's saliva carries enough viruses to kill somebody, especially if they're infected with something like mononucleosis or bacterial meningitis. Sounds to me like you were within your right to defend yourself. Maybe not to the extent you took it to, but to a certain extent." She starts wrapping my hands with gauze. "…Does your foster family have cats?"

"No… just a dog that doesn't like me." I turn my wrist upside down so she can wrap it properly.

"…So you won't give me the old 'cat scratched me' excuse when I ask about these marks on your wrist?" I just don't say anything to that. She must have really good eyes because I didn't think I applied enough pressure to actually leave marks. Or maybe I'm just stupid, like I said. I look at the marks she's referring to and just stare at them. They're not very prominent or anything. There are just two, very slightly bloody, pinkish, horizontal slats near the palm of my left hand. _Do you still think I don't need to be admitted to psych? _I look away from the marks because I'm just ashamed of them. I'm not this kind of person. I knew that when I was making those marks. I kept saying over and over and over again that I'm not the kind of person that does… _that. _But as I was listening through the vent of the downstairs bathroom to the conversation that Paula was having with the police officers, it felt… good to do it. And that scares the crap out of me. "That's what I thought." She uses her two fingers to pat the scratches very softly.

I wasn't trying to kill myself or anything like that. I mean, at this point I don't think I'd mind being dead. Being dead has got to be better than living like this. But I wasn't trying to kill myself. I just… Have you ever felt so full, you couldn't take it? Like… like a fish. Like a goldfish swimming around in one of those plastic bags you get at a carnival. I was just like that, except for there were holes in my bag and the water was spilling out slowly, but I knew that eventually there would be no water left in my bag and I was going to die. I was that fish, swimming in the holey baggie. And for about 2.5 seconds, it felt like doing that was patching up the holes in my baggie. It felt like I was going to live…for at least a little while.

A solid, hard knock briefly breaks my thoughts. Dr. Torres peels off her blue gloves and tosses them in the trashcan as she answers the door. When I look out into the hallway, all I see is a blonde ponytail. The blonde ponytail sways a little and Dr. Torres excuses herself into the hallway to talk to the owner of the blonde ponytail. I go back to thinking.

I didn't even bleed that much. I didn't think I pushed hard enough to break skin, actually. When I pulled the thing away from my skin, it was still perfectly intact. Only when I pulled the skin on my wrist upwards did I start to bleed and even then, it wasn't that much. On the plus side, I don't think I liked it. It DID make me feel really, really good for the moment, but after the initial sting of dragging it across my wrist, I felt really lousy. I don't know if I'd do it again. I don't think I will.

The door to the room I'm in opens up once again and through it walks the other blonde haired, blue eyed doctor that treated me that night as well. She looks all happy and preppy and I just wish I could channel that kind of energy sometimes. "Long time no see, eh kid?" She pulls a blue curtain across the room that closes us inside, leaving just me, her and the exam table all alone. "So, Dr. Torres tells me that you think you might need to go up to psych? Because you really did a number on one of my other patients, yeah?"

"…She's your patient too?"

"Yep. When the ambulance brought her in, I thought the girl got mauled by a bear. But then they told me that another little girl did it… and then you came in." She leans against the sink and keeps smiling at me. "…For what it's worth, I probably would've blown up on the girl if she spit on me, too. Not to that extent, but I definitely would have done something about it." I can tell by her wondering eyes that she's giving me a visual exam. "So, Dr. Torres says that she wants to re-examine those hands to make sure there aren't any new breaks that she missed." She grabs a doppler-looking thing and swipes it across my forehead. She glances at it quickly. "And you have a little bit of a fever." She cleans the thermometer off and puts it back where she got it from. "I'm going to take you up to the peds floor and get you a bed for a couple hours. I called your foster family and they're on their way. I'll keep you here for a little bit and talk to someone in psych about getting you a really good counselor and a heavier med dosage before I send you home tonight."

"…I'm going home? But I thought… don't I need to be… committed or something?" I wipe a couple more tears away from my cheeks. "I… almost killed a girl… and I did something bad to myself…"

"Well Dr. Torres and I both agree that putting you on the psych floor isn't really necessary." She opens up a blood pressure cuff and puts it around my arm, through my sweatshirt. "I know you're probably freaked about what went on today, but true psych patients don't have the guts to come in here and commit yourself. You're not a psych case, honey. You're just grieving… and you have really crappy people that aren't allowing you to grieve." Her ice blue eyes connect with mine for a second and I can see the sincerity in them. "…I don't want to see you on the psych floor. I don't want to see them strap you to the bed and give you really painful injections when you don't need it. I want you to see a grief counselor. And I want you to take the time that everyone's not giving you to grieve. You're not a psych case."

"…You think?"

"Yes I do. I think…" She leans against the sink again. "I think you're confused right now, and scared… and hurt. And I think you need time to come to terms with what happened to you. And I think that throwing you into a foster home, throwing you into a totally new school is totally unfair. I don't think you're being given the proper time to deal with this in your own way. And I think you need someone you can talk to… because when little girls are confused and scared and hurt… little girls do bad things. Like act out… like harm themselves." She stands upright. "So I'm going to tell your foster mom to let you stay here for a few hours, so you can talk to someone and rest. And we'll get you home tonight."

"…My foster mom? She still wants me?"

"Yep. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go see if your room up on peds is ready."

* * *

"_People grieve in different ways. Some people need weeks to get over something traumatic, while others may only need seconds. Some of us keep harping and dwelling on the fact that we lost whatever we lost, the other half of us spend most of our time just pushing away instead of accepting the fact that what we lost is gone." _At least that's what the counselor said. Even still, I can't really decipher what exactly that means. So what category do I fall into? Am I amongst the ones that only need moments to cope? Or am I the type that pushes away instead of accepting the fact that she's really gone? Because I'm telling you, I just don't know anymore.

I think I'm okay. Scratch that, I'm pretty sure I'm okay. By okay, I mean that I haven't really cried about it in a while. I still cry, but I don't really cry about that anymore. I also mean that I'm just… dealing. Dealing with the fact that I just don't know which way is up anymore. Let me just say that I'm actually feeling as content as I can feel at the moment. Let me clarify that while I'm not exactly happy with where I am right now; I'm actually giving it a chance. I can't remember who it was, but somebody very wise once told me that if you fake it, you'll eventually make it. At first, I didn't quite understand what that meant. Like what exactly does the phrase, "fake it until you make it" mean? But once I tried to stop being so close-minded, I started grasping the concept of it. And that's exactly what I've been doing for the last few days.

Of course I'm not happy about being torn away from the only other place in the world I was comfortable at, besides my real home. Of course I'm not happy about the fact that I don't know anyone around me. I hate the fact that I'm still riding out my five-day suspension from school. I haven't talked to any of my friends from Garfield since last week. I got suspended on a Friday and I'm not allowed to go back to school until next Monday. I don't even think I want to go back to school at this point. I want my cell phone back so I can talk to my friends. I want to go back to Garfield to visit them. I want the password to the internet so I can at least get on the internet on my laptop.

For the most part, I guess I'm doing okay here at the Myers'. I'm starting to learn the ropes of living here. For example, the shower is usually only free at 5:30, so that's when I bathe. One of the twins (I think it's Jaden but I still can't really tell them apart) is teaching me how to play this football game on the Xbox and I'm doing well with it. I'm actually… okay here. Not happy. I'm not happy. But I'm not unhappy either. I'm in the middle. I also learned how to tune out the baby when she decides to start screaming at 3:00 in the morning.

Being that I'm suspended from school, I've been spending a lot of time home alone with Paula and the baby. Ever since the court hearing, I've been trying to get in her good graces. I have a hefty $420 fine, plus I have to do 120 hours of community service for the fight in school. I think I got off easy but Paula's not exactly feeling the same. I don't start my community service until next week and I'm doing it at the daycare down the street. I'm allowed to use my car to get back and forth to the daycare every day but no more than that.

It's kind of crazy how much better I feel after talking to that counselor. Dr. Robbins set me up with someone that I actually like. Once a week, I go back to the hospital and talk to Mrs. Who. She's actually been helping me. Maybe it's the new medication they put me on, but I really do feel less… angry. I'm doing better. I'm doing a lot better. I haven't done that thing I did, either. I _have _been feeling like the fish in the baggie, but I just can't bring myself to do that. I think it was a one-time thing, to be honest. I actually eat dinner, breakfast and lunch, since I'm not in school yet. I even sleep pretty well at nights. And I don't think about everything I've lost. Mrs. Who says I'm "blocking" and that it's not a good way to cope, but I really don't feel like I am. I'm just really trying to make the best out of this shitty situation.

The only problem I'm having right now is that I haven't spoken to anyone from Garfield in four whole days. The last time I talked to Shane and Alex was after my first session with Mrs. Who, last Friday, on the day of my suspension. _I think I miss Alex more than Shane at this point. I wonder if he misses me. I hope he doesn't think_ _that we're broken up. I just really don't have any means of talking to him. It's playoff week for football and I haven't even been able to wish him good luck. Man this sucks._

"So did the kids tell you about that big football game this Friday?" Paula's busy standing at the counter rolling up meatballs for dinner tonight while I set the table. I've been saddled to the max with chores upon chores upon chores ever since I got the fine and the community service. Every night, I have to set the table, take out the garbage and wash the dinner dishes. The other kids have chores too, but not as many as I have. "Are you thinking about going with them? It'd be nice if you guys could all go together." Honestly, Paula's the only one in the house I really talk to. Alyssa and I have very minimal conversation. She usually asks me what I think of her outfits, and that's it. Jaden doesn't talk to me unless it has to deal with playing that game with him, Jason doesn't bother with me and the baby doesn't talk to anyone, of course. I'm actually okay with talking to Paula.

"I'm banned from school grounds until Monday, remember?" I put forks at every person's placemat. "Plus, I don't think it's really a good idea for me to go to a football game just yet. What if I see some of those girls there? I'm grounded anyway…"

"You'd be with the twins and Lys; they wouldn't let you get into any shenanigans. I hear the game's away, so you'd be fine to go… and I think it'd be good for you to get out of the house and hang out with them. They don't know much about you and you don't know much about them. You guys should get to know each other. Plus, you've been doing such a good job around the house… I don't think ungrounding you for one night is a complete stretch."

"…No thanks. I don't want to get into anything. I'll just sit in my room and watch TV like I did last weekend." I count out five plastic cups and put them on the table too.

"But it's a playoff game, Joey." _DON'T CALL ME THAT. DON'T YOU EVER CALL ME THAT. _

"…Yeah, I know." I'm so uncomfortable with the fact that she just called me that. Only one person in this world has ever called me "Joey". Just… no. "I still don't want to go."

"…I hear they're playing the Bulldogs. The Garfield Bulldogs."

"…huh?"

"I knew that'd perk you up to it." She smiles and giggles a little bit. "Yeah. The kids are all going to take a ride over to Garfield's stadium to see the game. I thought you'd really want to go… maybe see all your old friends."

"REALLY? I'M ALLOWED?!"

"Go for it." She walks over to the table and gives me an awkward side-hug. "This is ONE privilege, honey. One. I don't think you're ready to have your cell phone back, and the internet is still a no for me. And the car isn't allowed yet, either. You may go to the football game on Friday… as long as you're with the other kids. And you have to come straight home after it. No going out with your Garfield friends afterwards."

"I'm really allowed to go?!"

"I told you that I reward good behavior. You've been really good." She stops hugging me finally. "Go get washed up for dinner. The other kids should be home from their practices any minute." She returns back to the pot of meatballs. "Oh, and I won't be home tomorrow. I have to take the baby to the doctors, and Jason has a dentist appointment at 2:00. He's not going to school either, so you'll have him to keep you company while I'm out with the baby."

"Okay." _IS IT FRIDAY YET?! I really want to go back to Garfield! Oh crap… how am I going to see Alex if he's playing in the game? How am I going to see Shane, too? I'll take seeing April and Meredith and Cristina though. But I really wish I could just see Alex and Shane and Steph and Leah and Heather too. And she said I'm not allowed to go out after the game, either. Oh man..._

_But who cares?! I'm going back to Garfield on Friday!_


	21. Think

**A/N: **Just a warning, I might be changing the rating of this story from T to M. This chapter deals with much more graphic and mature themes, and if I feel like it's necessary, I will change the rating. I hope you're not sensitive to graphic, emotional & sexual natures.

* * *

"I really don't think you have anything to worry about, when you come back. Everyone pretty much gets that they shouldn't mess with you now. We watched the video in homeroom the other day and everyone thinks it's pretty hilarious… how she expected to just beat you up, but she got another thing." He lifts a soggy Oreo cookie from the glass of milk he was drowning it in and shoves it in his mouth. After a couple seconds of chewing the cookie, he sweeps it to the inside of his cheek so he can talk. "Well, I can only speak for the upper classmen, but I'm sure the underclassmen feel the same."

"Well I don't think it's funny." I take another Oreo from the package sitting in the middle of us on the coffee table and jam it onto my fork. My tongue is already starting to tingle from eating so many cookies drenched in milk, but I'm hungry and Oreos sounded like a pretty good breakfast option to the both of us. I'll deal with the allergic reaction later. "I mean yeah, she spit on me and I don't regret going after her for that. But I should've never let it get that bad. …And I kind of wish there wasn't a video. None of that would've even happened if they gave me a chance from the start."

"Well the freshmen and the sophomores are still childish… meaning they don't really give anyone a chance when they get a new kid. …Especially a new kid from Garfield." He turns the green glass of milk up to his lips and takes a long sip of it. He burps hard after drinking it and wipes away a milk-mustache. "Their hatred has nothing to do with the kind of person you are. It has everything to do with where you came from."

"Well that's bull, then." I drag my teeth along my tongue because it's itching. _No more cookies after this one. _"Just because I came from Garfield doesn't mean I'm a terrible person. I'm a pretty nice person, actually. I have lots of friends back home." I take a small bite of the cookie, since it's my last one and I want to savor it. "But I refuse to kiss anybody's ass to be my friend. If I don't make any friends at Franklin then I just don't make friends. You know? I'm not going to break my neck to be friends with people that didn't even bother to get to know me." I drag my teeth along my tongue again.

"…What's that weird thing you're doing with your mouth?" He finishes off his glass of milk and puts the cup on the coffee table.

"My tongue is itching." I didn't realize that he noticed that I'm doing that, but since he noticed, I might as well tell him about it. "I'm allergic to milk and my tongue is killing me. It's just itching."

"Then why the hell are you even drinking milk, if you know you're allergic to it?"

"Because I haven't had Oreos and milk in forever, I was hungry and it seemed like a good breakfast." I keep scratching my tongue. It's not that bad, it's just a little uncomfortable. "Don't worry; I'm not gonna kill over and die because I had a little bit of milk. My tongue's just itchy…"

"Well worse-case scenario, what would happen to you if you drank that entire glass of milk?" He motions to the glass I'm holding in my hand.

"Worse-case scenario, I break out in really bad hives all over the place. But I'm not gonna drink that glass, because I'm not stupid." I curl up on the couch and grab the remote. It's still relatively early for me. It's 10:30 in the morning and I don't usually get out of bed until 11:00 or 11:30. Jason came in my room and woke me up to ask me if I wanted breakfast. I thought he was cooking for me or something. Had I known his version of "breakfast" was a package of Oreos and two glasses of milk, I would've stayed asleep. From the corner of my eye, I notice that he's looking at me. "…What are you looking at?"

"I'm trying to see what the guys at school are talking about, but I have to admit that I'm struggling with it right now." He closes up the package of cookies and puts my still full glass of milk inside his empty glass. "I feel like a pedophile just listening to what they say. You're so young…"

"I'm not that young." I turn on the news channel and put the remote back on the table. "I'm sixteen… what are you? Seventeen? You're just a junior. You're not that much older than me." I squint my eyes and just glare at him. "And what are you even talking about?"

"I'm almost eighteen, first of all." He snaps his fingers in a "Z" formation and rolls his neck at me, which makes me laugh. He's pretty funny. "My brother and I missed two grades. Once because we changed schools so many times that we just never caught up and our grades were crappy, so we failed the third grade. And our real mother didn't put us in kindergarten until we were almost seven. So I'm eighteen, and that makes you a baby in my eyes."

"I'm still not a baby and you're still only two years older than me. I've been told I'm pretty mature for my age, so watch who you're talking to." I playfully toss a couch pillow over at him and hit him in the face with it. "I was the youngest one in my grade back in Garfield. Everyone else turned sixteen way before I did. I just turned sixteen last month. But I'm the only freshman that can drive, so that's a plus."

"How are you able to drive already? If you just turned sixteen, how are you already able to drive?"

"My grandmother started teaching me when I was fourteen. She didn't much like driving herself, so she was training me to be the designated driver." With my index finger, I brush over the fine hairs on my thighs that are shown because of the shortness of the shorts I'm wearing. I never shave my thighs when I shave my legs but I'm beginning to think that I should start. "On my fifteenth birthday, I got my permit. A little bit before my sixteenth birthday, I got my license." I glance at the TV then back at him. "…What did you mean by that, anyway? When you said 'you feel like a pedophile just listening to them talk.' What do they say?" _It's not like you're going to be able to tell Alex what they said about you without your phone. Why do you even want to know?_

He shrugs and leans forward to grab the remote off the table. "The upperclassmen aren't as reluctant as the underclassmen are when it comes to new kids. They just think you're pretty hot for a freshman." He starts scrolling through the channels. "And it's weird because you're just too young to even be on my list."

I raise my eyebrow just slightly and squint my eyes again. "What list?"

"It was just a figure of speech." _Yeah right, what list? _ He turns on a Jerry Springer rerun and tosses the remote onto the couch cushion beside him. He must be able to read my faces like Shane can, because he smirks and speaks up again. "Don't let it go to your head, freshie. To be considered hot at Franklin, all you need is a big butt, big boobs and long hair. That's all the boys around here look at. You're no model."

"…Screw you." I heave another couch pillow at him.

"What?! I already told you I feel like a pedo just listening to them talk about you! I'm attracted to older girls… older girls with more experience. See, most of my friends just don't give a shit. They'll hop in the bed with any girl they want to. Me? I've got my standards. I'm not the one that gets wrapped up in little girls, because none of them ever know what they're doing. You feel me?" He uses his hands to get his point across to me. "My friend David hooked up with a freshman a couple weeks ago and the poor girl didn't even know what the big O was."

"…The big O?" I like to consider myself pretty mature for my age, just like I said. But even I don't know what that is. _Gee, maybe I am a little too young. Or maybe he just beats around the bush too much._ "…Yeah, what's that?"

"Well, well, well… Miss 'I'm mature for my age'. You don't know what that is, either?"

"…I'm sure I do, I just don't get this fancy Franklin High School lingo." I run my fingers through my hair and flip it to the side. "You guys just have ten million ways to say one thing. It's rather annoying, actually. I'm not a stranger to bad words."

"An orgasm, freshie." He throws the pillow I just threw at him back to me. "But yeah, my friend David hooked up with a freshman about two…maybe three weeks ago, and the girl didn't even know what it was until he gave her one. I just can't see myself getting wrapped up in a little girl that doesn't know what she's doing." I mouth the word "Oh" and nod when I realize what that is. Yeah, I know what that is. And it makes me blush. That's awkward… _Well at least that hasn't changed about you. You still don't like sex-talks and that's still you. _"Why are you blushin'?"

"…I don't really…" I put my hand over my face so he can't see my cheeks. "I don't really like to talk about things like that. I find it weird… and a little bit awkward."

"You're such a freshman."

"I'm not!" Again, I throw the pillow back at him. "I KNOW what all that is. I know all about…" I mumble the word, "sex". My cheeks are so red right now. "I know all about it… but I just don't like to talk about it. That stuff is just private… and weird to talk about. That doesn't make me immature… that makes me…a girl. I just don't like to talk about it."

"Oh, you know all about it?"

"Yeah, I do. I'm not a baby. I obviously know what's supposed to go where and how things work… I just don't find it… normal to talk about it. That's gross."

"Virgin."

I suck my teeth and throw my hands up. "Seriously?!" I find myself smiling and cheesing so hard at him. "Just because… that's not something I talk about, I automatically have to be a virgin? What about just being a private person? Is that unheard of?"

He laughs so hard that he falls back against the couch and holds his stomach. "You're such a virgin! It's cute, it really is. It's cute…" Once he stops laughing, he actually looks at me like I'm a whole person again. "So there are just some things you won't tell anybody about yourself, because it's weird for you to talk about? You're so cute."

"It's not even like that. It's much more complicated than that, Jason."

"Okay then, play truth or dare with me. If it's not like that, then let's play truth or dare. And you're not allowed to skip out on anything."

"…I'm not playing truth or dare." I shake my head. That just doesn't sound like a good idea to me. "...I mean, I'll do all the truths… but I don't want to do any dares. I don't eat dirt, I don't eat bugs, I don't run around the neighborhood half naked. I don't do dares. We can play truth, just not dare."

"No skips?"

"I'll answer every question you ask me… truthfully. I won't skip anything… I promise. I just don't do dares."

"Okay, so truth or dare?" He winks at me. "I still have to ask… just in case you decide to change your mind about the dares."

"I won't change my mind… so truth." I sit up on the couch, cross my legs and play with my hair. I hope he doesn't ask me anything too personal. I don't like personal questions. But I promised him that I wouldn't skip anything and I tend to keep my promises.

"Have you had your first kiss yet? If no… why not? If yes… details." He hits the volume button on the remote a few times so that it's nearly silent between us.

"Yes." I nod. "When I was like… thirteen, I had my first kiss. It was to this guy that I did my science fair project with. We got partnered up and we were working on our presentation poster and he kissed me. He wouldn't stick his tongue in my mouth, which was weird… but that was my first kiss. That was my first real kiss." I drum my fingers along my kneecap. "You… truth or dare?"

"Truth."

"How old were you when you had your first kiss?" _I kind of really, really like talking to him. I feel like I'm actually bonding with him… like a true foster brother. He's like Shane 2.0. _

"Eleven. I kissed a girl underneath the table in the school library. Like yours… it wasn't full blown making out. But it was the first kiss that I actually kissed a girl with tongue. So that's that."

"You were eleven? That young?!"

"Yep. It wasn't that big a deal. I passed her a note that said I liked her. I asked her if she liked me too, and she circled yes. And we kissed underneath the table. I had no game when I was younger. I stepped it up a little since then, if I do say so myself." He winks at me again and brushes off his shoulder. "So you. Truth or dare?"

"Truth." _I'm not going to change my mind about the dare so he might as well stop asking._

"How old do you think is old enough to lose your v-card? How young do you think is too young?"

"…I don't even know." I flip my hair again and comb through it. "…Well fourteen is too young… way, way too young. I think…" I shrug. "I think once you know what you're doing, you can just go for it. I think you should at least wait until you know what you're doing. Fourteen is too young, but you should know what you're doing when you do decide to do it for the first time. That's what I think."

"…So you don't think you know what you're doing yet?"

"…Why are you questioning me about this? God this is so weird…" I cover my face again. "I didn't say that. The only thing I said was that fourteen is too young and that's that." My cheeks are so hot and red.

"You lost yours already!? No way! You're such a baby, though!"

"I'm NOT a baby. I told you I know all about that stuff. I just don't like to talk about it. Talking about it is weird to me. But…" I try really hard to stop blushing. "Fourteen is just entirely too young. I wish I would've waited longer than that. It was horrible, it sucked and I regret it of course, but I can't take it back. I did it and I haven't done it since, so let's move on."

"…I can't move on, my mind is blown. You're so… kiddish. I can't even…" He shakes his head. "Why do you think it sucked? Did the guy not know what he was doing?"

"…No, he knew what he was doing." _Don't blush about it. Pretend you're spilling your guts to Shane. It's Shane you're talking to. _"He knew exactly what he was doing… I just wasn't ready for all that. He was sixteen at the time, so he knew perfectly well what he was doing. It was me. I wasn't ready for that kind of… thing, you know? I didn't know what to expect… I definitely didn't expect it to be what it was… but I didn't know what to really… expect."

"So it must've hurt. That's not abnormal, though. Did it hurt?"

I shake my head. "No… it didn't hurt at all. I was just…" I bite my lip. _It won't kill you to open up to the guy. He's your foster brother… _"Okay, it was outside. It wasn't completely dark outside, either. It was like… just about to get dark. So it was outside, in the daylight and it was just really weird. It was at the YMCA back where I used to live and I did it for all the wrong reasons. I didn't even want to do it."

"…So you were like… forced or something?"

"NO!" I throw my hands up for that. _Let's get that straight RIGHT now. I wasn't raped or anything like that. It wasn't that at all. _"No, no no… he didn't force me to do anything. It was just like…" I tap my fingers against my kneecap again. ""When people have sex for the first time, it's usually because they want to, you know? I didn't even want to. I did it for all the wrong reasons. My best friend had lost his virginity when he was twelve, so by the time I was fourteen, he was fifteen and he was having sex… a LOT already. And he would always talk to me about it and I just never knew what to say… because I hadn't done it. I got tired of listening to him talking about it, so I had the opportunity to do it and I just did it. It freaking sucked. Like… it was just bad. It was all bad. Bad because I didn't even want to really do it, the whole time I was wishing he'd be done already and… I don't know, it just wasn't… fun."

"If it happened outside… how'd that even work?" He looks really, really confused. I can tell that I didn't do a well enough job at explaining it.

"It was like…" I'm blushing again. "Okay, the YMCA back where I used to live has two parts to it. There's an outdoor pool and an indoor pool. We were in the outdoor pool and some guy kept grabbing my ass every time I turned around. And the guy was really cute so I let him… who wouldn't let a cute guy grab their ass? But anyway…" I don't even want to think about how awkward that entire day was. The whole twenty minutes was just all bad. "I can't remember how, but me and the guy started making out and touching all heavy and stuff and… you know, there was some hand action before it even escalated. I was so young and dumb and doing it behind the pool shed sounded like a really good idea!" I'm not even talking to Jason anymore. I'm talking at the floor because it's easier if I don't look at him. "So we went behind the pool shed and it was like… wham, bam, done. …To the sound of pickup trucks driving past the highway. Let me just say that I'm definitely not proud of that."

"Ohhh wow! Freshie, you're actually quite bold, eh?"

"It was just a one-time thing. I don't even know the dude's name. I hooked up with him for twenty minutes and never saw him again." I clear my throat. "When did this turn into a 'let's grill Jo' session? It's your turn. Truth or dare?"

"Truth, please."

"How old were YOU when you did it for the first time?"

"Twelve, going on thirteen. Slept with a fifteen year old that wouldn't leave me alone after I gave it to her. Haven't looked back since." He shrugs his shoulders like he's the shit or something. "See, it's something about older girls. I love them and they love me. I slept with the girl one time and she kept calling me for more and more. Older chicks love me. They just know what they're doing."

"What did twelve year-old you know about that? And I like how you just think younger girls have no idea what they're doing just because you prefer older girls. Not all young girls are clueless… you're just a reverse cougar."

"I'm not a reverse cougar. Cougars are women. Women that go after younger men. I'm a man that likes older women. There's nothing wrong with that."

"…What's the oldest you've ever gone?"

"Um… I had a 27 year old on my pipe the other night, if that counts."

"EW! REALLY?! She's ten years older than you!" I shiver at that. "How do you even know that you don't like younger girls if you've never given them a chance? You said yourself your first experience was with an older girl. You've never even tried the young stuff. You need someone your own age…"

"Excuse me, but this is spoken from the girl that banged a sixteen year old behind a pool shed. You don't get to judge me about your standards. Just because the oldest you've ever gone was two years older doesn't mean you get to come at me." He's laughing hard and so am I. I really feel like I'm having a conversation with Shane right now.

"…My boyfriend's two years older than me too, so make that two guys that are two years older than me."

"You have a boyfriend?"

"Mhm." I nod my head. "His name's Alex. He's a senior back at Garfield."

"…So you're banging a senior now? Good job, freshie." He offers me a high-five.

"I'm not BANGING a senior, I'm DATING a senior. There's a difference."

"…You haven't let him hit it yet?"

I cringe at the "hit-it" part. Really? Why can't he use words like "make love" instead of BANGING? Or why can't he say "you haven't slept with him yet" instead of "he hasn't hit it?" He's not making my blushing problem any easier. "…No. We've only been dating for like two weeks or something… maybe a little less than that. I don't sleep with guys I just got together with."

"Have you at least kissed him? I mean, if you're not letting him in your pants, the least you can do is kiss him. You're gonna break the poor guy."

"Alex isn't like that. He doesn't care if we do or if we don't. He's… he's different, okay? And yes… I have kissed him. Lots of times."

"Was it a peck or was it a real kiss?"

"It was a real kiss! I told you I'm not a little baby! …What do I have to do to get that through your head? I'm not a baby."

"I just don't think you know how to kiss. Okay, I admit that I agree with most of my friends when they talk about you." I wrinkle my eyebrow at him and again, like Shane, he's able to read through that expression. "You do have a nice ass… and your tits are nice too. But you're still so… young."

"…I get that a lot. But I'm really not that young." _Why doesn't it bother you that he just said that about you? He just commented on your body and you're not even cringing. It's like Shane just said that about you. _"You'd actually be surprised how many times I've heard the butt and the boobs compliment lately." _Maybe because he's NOT Shane, and you know that._

"I mean, it's kind of true." The tone of his voice completely changes. It's lower, almost inaudible. "If you were about three years older, I'd want in."

"…Why do I have to be three years older for you to want me? Just because I'm younger doesn't mean I can't handle you." _Are you flirting? Dude, shut UP. Don't say another word. Keep your mouth SHUT. _

"I really don't think you _could _handle this, that's the thing." He's flirting back and I still don't even have half a mind to do anything about it. This is wrong… so wrong. But I can't even stop it from happening. "You'd _have _to be a little older to handle this. That's just how it is."

"Don't underestimate me… that's all I'm saying." _But he's actually really hot… the more I look at him, the more I realize that. He's hot… and his lips look really soft and he's just really cute and he's flirting with me and damn, how could I even resist? _"All it takes is one time with one girl… that's all you need to change your mind about older girls." _Don't even think anymore. Just do whatever you feel… do whatever you feel. _I cross my legs and rest my hands on my knees. "But I'm just saying."

"You talk a really, really good game." He sits back against the couch and puts his hands behind his head. "But if you want my opinion, I think you're all bark and no bite. It's okay to talk a good game but if you don't show any action…" He turns his head away from me. "Though it would be nice to see what you're all about… since you claim you're not a baby, I mean."

I roll my eyes at him and smile… but it's not one of my usual smiles. It's a smile that I haven't smiled in a really long time. It's kind of devious and a little bit menacing. _The last time you smiled like this was with… _Shut up. I cut my thoughts off so quickly… Just do what I feel… even if I think it's wrong, right? I purse my lips together in a hard line and quickly spring up off the couch, before I lose my nerve. I swing my thick ponytail to the left side of my shoulders so it'll stay out of my way. It's clear that I'm not thinking. I swing one of my legs across Jason so that I'm straddling him, and his hands immediately go to my lower back. This doesn't feel wrong yet. I'm waiting for it to feel wrong… I'm waiting.

Since I'm not feeling wrong, I lower my face to his, tilt my head and kiss him. It's not one of those innocent kisses, either. I thought this was about showing him that I'm not a baby, but I'm actually kind of enjoying myself. I'm beginning to think that this isn't at all about showing him that my age doesn't matter. I hold his face still around his jawline with my left hand and use my right hand to caress the back of his head. He's definitely an experienced kisser, but so am I. When he pushes hard against my face with his to deepen the kiss, I push back with equal intensity. _His hands… oh god, his hands._ Ignoring where his hands are, I just kiss him deeper.

He pulls out of the kiss for a few seconds. When we stop kissing for the moment, I open up my eyes and see that he's looking up at me while I'm looking down at him. He takes one of his hands off the spot on my ass it was on and curls it through my ponytail. "You're beautiful…" He whispers, shock and awe clear in his voice. _Don't say that to me. Don't talk… just don't talk. _To avoid another incident of him saying that again, I push my mouth against his again. _He called you beautiful… not hot, not sexy… beautiful. _Damn, why's he gotta mess with my head like that? I just want to make out… nothing else. With his one hand stroking through my hair and his other hand wandering from my butt to my lower back, up my t-shirt, I can tell he's enjoying this. I am too, but a little less now that he called me beautiful.

Once again, he stops kissing me. _If he says another thing to me, this is over. Why is it so hard for him to just kiss me without saying anything? _Well to my relief, he doesn't start talking again. He nestles his face in the crook of my neck and starts sucking on it. My eyes roll to the back of my head and I just let him go. _Stop kissing me there… stop kissing me there… stop. kissing. me. there. _Both his hands are up underneath my t-shirt now. Right now, he's just stroking and caressing all over my back and that's okay… as long as he doesn't go anywhere but there. _I can't handle him kissing me like this… I'm starting to want him, and that's a problem. _And just like I didn't want them to, his hands move from my back, down to my hips. Okay, they can stay there.

His fingers intertwine with the dangly parts of my belly ring. His hands don't stay on my hips for long. _He can't… scratch that, he WON'T go there, will he? _He's still kissing my neck which is driving me wild. _I guess he will go there… yep, he will. _Both his hands are on the cups of my bra, kneading and rubbing me. _Are you okay with him feeling you up? Like… really okay? _No. I pull away from with the quickness and force his hands out from under my shirt. _Dammit. Dammit, dammit, dammit. DAMMIT. Oh my goodness! _When I pull away from him, his eyes say it all. He wasn't in any way, shape or form ready to stop. In fact, I think he's a little bit desperate for more. "We shouldn't… do this." I put my hands against his chest and push some more. He's trying to shove his hands back up my shirt but I'm resisting him. "I'm not… we just… I can't… okay?"

"But you're so…" He kisses my neck just one more time and I pull away from him. "Come on, Jo. I'm gonna die if we don't…"

_I hope you didn't think I was actually going to have sex with you. I might have been a little drunk on the kisses and high on you feeling me up, but I wasn't gonna actually have sex with you. So I guess you're just gonna die then… _"I know and I'm so sorry…" I ease myself off his lap and readjust my bra. "But we really shouldn't… we shouldn't."

"Why not? You said yourself you haven't done it in a while…" He grabs my hand and pulls me back towards him. "I'll take it easy on you…" Once he has me back within his reach, his hands go back to the first spot they were at, right on my ass. "I'll be easy on you…" For a minute, I give in again. I let him pull me down on the couch again but this time he's lying on top of me. "You're so fucking hot…" _You're NOT having sex with him. I'm drawing the line. You are NOT. You haven't even slept with Alex yet! Oh my god… Alex… _Jason's hands are trying to make their way down the front of my shorts and for a second, they actually get in. I clasp my legs shut, tightly. _Alex…_

"I have a boyfriend." I sit up with one of his hands still trapped between my legs. "I can't do this, Jason… I can't. I have a boyfriend." _I didn't even think about Alex… oh my gosh, he's gonna be so mad at me. I didn't mean to hurt him by all of this. Alex… _

"That makes you hotter." He still has a pretty tight grip around my waist with his one free hand. "I won't tell if you won't tell... nobody will find out." He tries to move the hand between my legs so that he's getting some finger action but I squeeze my thighs together so hard. _I'm NOT having sex with him and I mean that. Like… ever. _"Come on… you want to… you want me, just like I want you. You can't just…" He distracts me with a kiss on my lips and tries to move the hand between my legs again. Nope. "You can't just dangle it in front of me then take it away. We're home alone… come on."

_Yes the hell I can, and yes the hell I just did. I'm not sleeping with you. _"I know and I'm so sorry… I wasn't thinking." I yank his hand from between my legs and finally, when he sees that I'm SERIOUS, he lets me go. "I'm sorry. I'm SO sorry. I didn't mean for this to go this far." I stand up off the couch again and take a couple steps away so that he can't grab me again. "But I'm pretty sure I just cheated on my boyfriend and I'm not cool with that and I'm really starting to like it here and I just really don't want to get kicked out for this. I'm sorry… I really am."

"You didn't cheat on your boyfriend. We didn't do anything." He stands up too which makes me take a couple more steps away. I'm not doing this. I'm NOT doing this. "What about oral? That's not sex…"

"Oral sex is sex to me, and despite all the rumors going around about me, I DON'T do that." I hold my hands out to him and keep backing away. "Look, I'm sorry… I'm so sorry. I really, really am sorry. But I can't. I just… can't."

"Who said you'd have to be the giver? I'm good with my mouth." He takes a couple steps towards me and I take three more steps back.

"Yeah… I still can't. You're a… you're a really good kisser and you're really handsome but I just CAN'T do this. I… I have too much to lose. Y… you can't get in trouble for kissing me, but I can get in trouble for kissing you. I don't want to get kicked out of here…"

"Who's gonna tell on us?" He finally stops walking towards me. "There's nobody here. Just you… and me."

I close my eyes and throw my head back. _What part of NO doesn't this boy understand? _"How many times do I have to tell you sorry? I'm SORRY. I know… I got you all… ready and stuff and I flirted with you and I made the first move but I can't let this go any further than this. Please, Jason… Just understand that."

"I DO understand that, but you can't just tease me like that. You know how sexy you are… you can't tease me like that. I want you… and I always get what I want. I can't keep my hands off you now… you did this. You gave me taste and I want more… I want more."

_You fuck everything up. You're just one big ball of fuck-up, aren't you? _"I'm truly, deeply, from the bottom of my heart, sorry. But… if you're not going to be able to keep your hands off me, then I'll stay away from you. I'm so sorry. I never meant for that to even happen. Can we just… can we just go back to talking? Like we were talking before? I still want to be your friend… okay?"

"I can't be your friend, Jo. I need to be more than your friend."

"I'm sorry… I shouldn't have… this is my fault. I'm sorry, but I really just can't. I can't. I'll stay away from you, I won't talk to you, I'll keep my distance. I know this is my fault and I'm sorry. I'm sorry. But I have a boyfriend and I DON'T want to get kicked out of the house for something like this. …You know that we can't. You know it's bad if we do. You know that what we just did could get me kicked out of this house. And I really want to stay…"

"I want you to stay too." He catches me off guard and takes one long stride towards me. Again, he tangles his hands inside my ponytail and pulls me close to him. "I want you… and I don't care about your boyfriend. I'll fight for you." _GOD, DUDE. YOU CAN'T POSSIBLY BE IN LOVE WITH ME. _"If I want you, I'm gonna get you…" _All I did was KISS you! If you're going this crazy over a simple kiss, then WOAH I'm glad I didn't have sex with you. I don't want you. And you'll be fighting with Alex for a very long time because I think I might love him. All kissing you did was make me realize that I might love him. _

_You really gotta stop kissing inappropriate guys though, Jo. You gotta quit that._

* * *

**Friday**

I need to find a way to see Alex after the game tonight. I feel so damn guilty and I've been feeling guilty for DAYS. I've been feeling guilty since I kissed Jason, three days ago. I think the only way to stop feeling so lousy about what happened is to just tell him about it. I'm going to tell him what I did, one way or another. _And hope to god he forgives you. _I still don't even know what the hell happened on Tuesday. How did I even kiss Jason? Like… how did I let that even happen? And I fucked up really bad with that one. I thought it was going to be bad when I kissed Shane, but this is so much worse. Ever since that happened, Jason's been treating me… weird. He's not mean to me or anything but he just stares at me. At the dinner table, he stares at me. When I'm walking up the steps, he'll sneak in a touch on my butt or something. I fucked up so badly and if Paula ever notices how he treats me, I'm out of this house.

I have to tell Alex about it. I hope he forgives me but if he doesn't, I completely understand. I really don't want to lose him. I think I might love him and that's why I'm so scared of losing him. Kissing Jason just made it even clearer to me that I can't just lie down and have sex with someone random. The only person I can even fathom sleeping with is Alex. I think I might have just ruined things for myself, once again. Okay, so what if I don't tell Alex? I can keep this a secret. Jason said he won't tell anyone and I really believe that. So if I don't tell Alex, then he just won't know and then I can just go back to being his girlfriend. But I won't stop feeling so guilty and lousy about it if I don't tell him. Part of me really wishes it were Monday afternoon so I could go talk to Mrs. Who about this.

_I just need my fucking cell phone, that's what I need. _If I had my cell phone, I would've called Alex and told him about what I did the day I did it. I need my phone. I wish I knew where Paula hid it. I can't deal with this anymore. I've been feeling so crappy ever since TUESDAY. It's FRIDAY now. I've been holding this in for three whole days. How am I going to convince Paula to let me go out after the game? How am I going to talk to Alex without getting into trouble? I've just been running through that day over and over and over again in my head. How did I let that happen? Was I confused? Was I just being a horny, hormonal teenager? How the HELL did I let that even happen?

I keep trying to tell myself that it was just a kiss, but it was more than that. Am I "blocking" again? Because I'm literally not registering anything about that day. I remember… I remember kissing him, and that's it. I remember being on his lap and making out with him for like five minutes and THAT'S IT. It had to have been more though. It was more. Because Jason can tell me what my bra looked like that day and he can tell me about the beauty mark on my chest that he kissed. So it had to have been more. But all I remember is kissing him for five measly minutes and I vaguely remember apologizing for some reason, afterwards. I don't remember anything… maybe I really am blocking.

I know I didn't have sex with him. I DO know that. I think I might have come close to it, though. Because he tells me every night… he tells me every night while we're cleaning up the kitchen after dinner that he had a taste and he wants more. What does that even mean? And he feels obligated to see me naked now, too. Like when I'm in the shower, he thinks it's okay to just come in the bathroom and brush his teeth. Did he see me naked? What did I do? Why can't I even remember what I did? _You're not trying hard enough to remember, idiot. You better get out of here before they wonder what you're doing in here, I know that much. Pick your ass up off this floor and go outside. _My thoughts are so loud right now that I can't hear myself breathe.

I pull my knees up into my chest and rest my chin against my jeans-covered kneecap. My eyes ache from crying so much. _I really need you to think about what you did. Because I don't want you lying to Alex about this. If you tell him that you kissed Jason when it was CLEARLY more than just a kiss, then you're lying to him. Think, idiot. Think… think… THINK. Think, before you run out of water. The holes in your bag are getting bigger. _I sweep my hair out my face so that I can cry without it sticking to my cheeks. _I hate my hair anymore. I think I want it cut. I think I want to chop it all off. _Jason said yesterday that I have hair that's good to grab onto while a guy does it from behind. _Yeah, I want to cut it all off. I want to put it up in a ponytail and just cut the ponytail off. You idiot, you're not thinking. THINK ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED TUESDAY, NOT ABOUT WHAT HE WANTS TO DO TO YOU._

Interrupting my thoughts, somebody rhythmically knocks on the bathroom door. "Jo?" It's Alyssa. Her voice is soft and calm, a mere counter to my angry, loud, hateful thoughts. "We're leaving in a couple minutes… we want to get good seats. Come on!"

_You'd better get going. _Quickly, I lift up the loose floorboard I discovered in the bathroom sometime last week and grab it. I take a deep breath and pull the left sleeve of my purple and white Garfield hoodie up. My jaw trembles as I try to speak. "J…Just a second!" My voice comes out in a tone that doesn't even mirror the way I'm feeling. I really didn't want to do this, but the holes in my baggie are big, the water is spilling out and I'm going to die if I don't patch them up. I roll up a part of the hood of my sweatshirt and bite down on it while I search for a clean spot. I have to go down pretty far to find a fresh spot that isn't sore from one that's already there. _There. That one's healing… _When I find the spot, I push down until I hear the soft, splitting crunchy noise. When I hear the noise, I know I'm deep enough. I drag about two inches across and softly moan into the hood of my sweatshirt. "Ahhh…" When the deep red, almost purple blood drips down onto the white tile floor, I grab the blood-spotted washcloth I use every time and wipe it up. I push the rag to the new cut and wait for it to stop bleeding. I can breathe again… _You're okay… you're okay… It doesn't hurt… _I peel away the rag and see if it's done bleeding.

Another knock on the door. "Jo? We'll be out in the car."

"I said just a minute!" I try to mask the tears in my voice. I don't usually stop at one, because one is NEVER enough to patch the holes in my baggie. But I'm being rushed, so maybe one can keep me from dying for just a little while. I dab the rag on my wrist a couple more times and shove both it and the razor blade back into the floorboard. _Try to have fun at the game. Try not to die. Try to remember…_


	22. Hate You?

**A/N: ** I am changing the rating of this story to M, for reasons you'll see pretty soon. Pay attention to this chapter, and ESPECIALLY next chapter. I'll try to have chapter 23 up within the next 10 hours or so, because it's crucial that 22 & 23 go hand in hand as quickly as possible. Thanks for all the reviews and positive comments! :)

* * *

"I'll just meet up with you guys after the game." It feels so good to be back here, where I'm comfortable. Don't get me wrong, I still feel like the lousiest piece of crap on the face of the Earth for what I did this week, but maybe for a few hours I can just breathe. Just for a couple hours, I can be who I used to be. I look around while we're standing outside the stadium, just anxious to get in. Since it's a playoff game, it starts about an hour later than usual. The lights are already on and the lines for both the home and away tickets are already outrageous. Easy around my sore left wrist, I tuck my hands into my hoodie pocket and wait for the okay to leave them. "We can meet at the car if you want."

"Mom said you're supposed to stay with us." Jaden crosses his arms across his chest and sounds like he's not going to let me just do my own thing without snitching. _I swear to God I'm not sitting on Franklin's side. If I have to sit over there with them, I will walk my ass home. I'm not sitting with them. I don't even like Franklin. _"She said if you don't stay with us, then we're all grounded. And I'm not trying to get grounded when the Halloween dance is coming up." I just roll my eyes at him to express my discontent.

"Stop being such a grouch, Jaden." Alyssa nudges him hard in the ribs with her elbow. "Mom never said that you had to stay with us. She just told us to look after you, which could really mean anything." She reaches inside her back pocket and hands me a crisp, twenty dollar bill. "Meet us out here by the entrance when there's two minutes left in the fourth quarter. If you don't meet us, then we're all grounded. Got it?"

"Maybe I should go sit over on the other side with her… Just to make sure we don't get grounded." Jason takes one step over towards me and I step back away from him.

"Guys, I'm perfectly capable of sitting with my friends. I don't need supervision." I take one more step away from Jason, just because I feel like he's too close. _And if one person has to come over with me to make sure I'm "okay", I definitely don't need for it to be him. It could be anyone BUT him. _"I'll meet you guys back out here during the fourth quarter, I promise." Before either one of them can say another word to me, I hastily walk over to get into the ticket line. I hope there's an extra seat over by April and the girls. They don't know I'm coming because I still don't have my phone, but I don't think they'll be upset to see me or anything. _Can you imagine how mortifying that would've been had they made you sit over by them while you're wearing a purple and white Bulldogs sweatshirt? They would've lynched your ass over there. _

In front of me in line, a group of familiar sophomores are dressed crazily. I forgot just how big a deal the Garfield vs. Franklin game is to the Garfielders. We lose every single time we play them, but it's always a really big deal. I wonder how awesome the pep rally was for this game today, back in school. The pep rallies for any game that we play Franklin are always amazing. When we played them last year, the pep rally was open to the middle schoolers to attend. We had a fake fire drill and that was just a ploy to get everyone out of the building. The pep rally was outside and it was so awesome. Seeing how the girls in front of me are wearing short purple shorts and cut-off t-shirts despite the freezing weather makes me think that I should've dressed a little more special for this occasion. I wouldn't have gone all out and put purple and white painted handprints on my legs and arms like the girls in front of me did, but I could've thought of something better than skinny jeans, UGG boots and a hoodie. I tied a purple ribbon around my ponytail, so I guess that can count as something special.

I still haven't figured out how I'm going to see Alex if he's busy playing in the game. Come to think of it, I won't be able to see Shane, either. What's the use of coming if I'm not going to be able to see my best friend and my boyfriend? I need to make a way so that I can either hang out with them after the game or something. _You can always find out where everyone's hanging out later and sneak out. Either way it goes, you HAVE to talk to Alex about the whole Jason incident. _I'm probably gonna have to sneak out later. Paula's not going to let me out after the game by myself, even if I ask. She's going to want me to take someone with me and knowing him, Jason would oblige. I think sneaking out is my only option. Whatever, I'll figure it out as I go.

"Just one student ticket, hon?" My old English teacher, Mr. Spindle is handling the tickets at the gate. He hasn't looked up from the pile of money he just shoved inside the moneybox so I don't think he noticed it was me yet. He nudges his glasses up on his nose with his index finger and finally looks up. "Hey! Come back to support your old school, JW?" I miss Spindle calling me JW. He was probably my favorite teacher and I was clearly his favorite student. He only favored me because I was the only one that gave a shit about his class. I had a permanent A and he liked me because I paid attention when everyone else talked or slept.

"Now you know I have to come back and support the Bulldogs, Spin." I hand him the twenty bucks and wait for my change. "…How's class without me?" I rock back and forth on my feet and watch his hands as he counts out sixteen dollars to give back to me.

"Nobody has anything higher than a C, and that's that." He chuckles and hands me my change. "You take care, hon."

"Thanks, Spin." I roll the money up in a wad and shove it into my back pocket. _I can't remember exactly where April and the girls sit. It might just come back to me as soon as I walk inside the stadium, but if it doesn't? I think they sit pretty close to the cheerleaders so I'll just keep my eyes peeled. _The purple ribbon in my hair is tickling my neck, so I reach back and push it away. _Ouch. Be careful. _While I'm walking towards the entrance of the stadium, I look down at my left hand and turn it upright so I can see the wrist. I peel back the fabric of my sweatshirt, which is sticking to it. I guess it didn't stop bleeding and it's all sticky and gross now. _Good thing the sleeves are dark purple. _I sigh, pile both my hands inside the front pocket of the hoodie and walk in through the gates.

Down on the field, the Franklin players are warming up and the Garfield players are presumably still in the locker room. As soon as I get inside the gates, I hear the warm-up music playing over the speakers and the cheerleaders chanting "Let's go Bulldogs, Let's go!" loud and proud. There are painted signs hung up all around the fences near the locker room entrance and little end tables that are selling Bulldogs merchandise all over the place. I bob my head along to the beat of the song that's playing over the speakers and look down into the crowds of people for April's red hair. I don't know the name of the song that's playing but I've heard it a couple times before, over Shane's house. It's some rap song, of course. _April… April… come on, April. Where are you? _I keep scanning the crowd for the redhead. _What if she doesn't want to sit next to you? What if they don't like you anymore? I just talked to them last Friday when I was crying in the bathroom… has anything changed since then? I haven't spoken to anyone from Garfield, including Shane and Alex in a week._

_**LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WELCOME TO JAMES A. GARFIELD SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL AND THANK YOU FOR COMING OUT TO TONIGHT'S FOOTBALL GAME WHERE YOUR GARFIELD BULLDOGS HOST THE SEA KINGS OF FRANKLIN HIGH SCHOOL. NOW LET'S MEET THE STARTING LINEUP FOR THE VISITING SEA KINGS!**_

_Crap, it's starting and you still haven't found April and the girls. It wouldn't be so bad if you just sat by yourself. Or maybe you can find Miss Kelly. She's probably here, along with Nicky and Mattie. Just find a freaking seat. _I turn in towards a flight of steps that's just above the spot down on the field where the cheerleaders stand. _Well, this will really suck if you came for no reason. You can't see Alex, you can't see Shane, you can't even see Steph, Heather and Leah because they're cheering. And now you can't even find April, Meredith and Cristina. You sorta came for no reason. _I wander through the aisles of bleachers for an empty seat. It's pretty packed in here, like it always is when we play Franklin. Again, I swat the ribbon in my hair away because it's tickling my neck. I at least wish I had my phone so I can text her and ask her where they're sitting. That would help.

"Hey Ape… is that Wilson?" Very faintly from behind me, I hear what sounds like Meredith's voice. I turn my head around quickly. "It is. Hey Wilson, up here!" I squint my eyes so I can see exactly where her voice is coming from. They're like two rows up from me, and they're ALL there. Meredith, Cristina, both their boyfriends and April. The only one that isn't there that was the last time is Mark. _April has a purple beanie hat on… no wonder you couldn't find her red hair. _I jump up so quick and practically run up the two rows of bleachers to them. My god I missed these people!

"APRIL!" Words can't even begin to describe how loud I just screamed her name.

"Jo!" She immediately gives me a really tight hug. "How come you didn't tell us you were coming?! I would've met you by the door or something! I would've totally told Alex you were coming! Why didn't you tell anybody?!" I think I might start to cry. I just missed my friends and actual human contact.

"My hairball's back! Somebody finally coughed her up!" Cristina leans forward and offers her fist so we can fist-bump. Still hugging April, I lean over and bump fists with her.

"I don't have a phone right now. My new guardian took my phone away and I haven't left the house in a week. I'm so grounded… I'm BEYOND grounded, actually. I don't have any contact with the outside world." I finally let April go and sit down next to her. "My fake brothers and sister tried to make me sit over on Franklin's side and I said hell no, I have to sit with my friends!"

"So how are they treating you over there? I mean, aside from the incident where you went all Mike Tyson on that one girl… how are they treating you?" Meredith offers me her box of popcorn and I respectfully decline.

"You guys heard about the fight? How? I didn't even tell anyone from Garfield… my phone got taken away like right after I fought her."

"Some girl posted it on Facebook… and she tagged you in it. Pretty much everyone at Garfield's seen it… And everybody's surprised that you know how to fight like that. That was nuts. How many times did you punch the girl?!" April pokes and prods me for the full details of it. "I had to replay the video like ten times because I didn't know if it was really you. You really know how to kick someone's ass…"

"Oh my god…" I cover my face with my hands and fight the smile shining through my lips. _I really need internet access. What do you mean it's all over Facebook?! _"I don't even know what happened. It all happened so fast and it was all so… crazy. It was like… I don't know." I still can't believe it's on Facebook. I wish there wasn't a video of it at all. "One minute she spit on me and the next minute, I just had blood on my hands. I literally just saw red. It was like… it was like someone just gave me tunnel vision. I was gonna kill that bitch. Who spits on people like that?!"

"Exactly! She would've been picking her teeth up off the ground if she spit on me like that." Cristina jumps in the conversation. "Did you see us arguing with those Franklin girls in the comments on the video? They were all talking about how wrong you were for beating her up like that, but we all would've done the same!"

"There's comments?! Oh my god, let me see somebody's phone! I've been phoneless for a whole week, so I don't even know what's going on. Oh god, what are people saying about me?" I take April's phone out of her hands when she offers it to me and log into my Facebook immediately. "People think I'm trashy for fighting like that, don't they? Everyone thinks I'm a lunatic, huh?"

"No!" Meredith shakes her head at me. "You should've heard us watching it in senior seminar. We were all like… rooting for you. Even Alex was like 'damn.' The entire senior class was like… cheering and saying 'Get her, Jo!' while we were watching the video. We're all totally on your side. It was just crazy seeing you blow up on the girl like that. That was wild."

"Yeah, Alex… what did he say about it? Is he mad at me? He told me not to get in trouble over there and that's exactly what I did. Is he pissed off?" My eyes widen by at least two whole sizes when my Facebook pops up on April's phone. 52 friend requests, 15 messages, and 102 notifications. I guess I'll check the messages first. I tap on my messages and scroll through them to see if they're from anyone important. "I really need to get my phone back."

All of the messages are from Alex, Shane, Leah, Stephanie, Heather, a couple random boys that I don't know and one from Jackson. I check the friend requests next. Friend requests from April, Cristina, Meredith, Derek, Jackson, Owen, a bunch of BOYS and two from Mouth of The South and Rumpelstiltskin. I accept them all, just because I don't care. I check the notifications last. The video tag is in there and all the comments from the videos. _Gabby Woods tagged you in a video! Gabby Woods… Rumpelstiltskin? Or M.O.T.S? One of them. _I read it in my head and tap on it. There are 142 comments on the video alone.

"Karev don't care that you kicked the crap out of this girl. He's more worried about the fact that he hasn't talked to you in a week. He thinks you broke up with him… either that or you went to juvi." Cristina says. "When we were watching it in senior seminar, he was just like… shocked that it was actually you. And he got a little mad at the part where your shirt was suddenly off… other than that, he doesn't care. He thinks you handled your business and you really did. I know after watching that, I'm not messing with you."

"Yeah, me either." April reads the comments that I'm reading on the video, over my shoulder. I just scan over the majority of the comments with my eyes. The Franklin girls are pretty upset, which is kind of funny.

**Payton H: **Wow smh did this girl at least go to juvi?

**Gabby W: **NO! isn't that crazy how she just did that? Like why would you kick somebody while theyre already down? She's nothing but a coward

**Payton H: **Yeah I know omg. Im praying for Bianca :( (4 people liked this comment)

**Gabby W: **Shes doing ok now. I don't get how people can be such bullies!

**Cristina Y: **Girl got what she deserved. :I

**Gabby W: **Who the hell are you? ^^ (2 people liked this comment)

**Cristina Y: **don't worry about it. but you can't just spit on people and get away with it.

**Gabby W: **^^WOW you must be from trashy ass Garfield too. regardless what Bianca did to her, she didn't have to beat her up like that. disrespectful!

**Meredith G: **I think spitting on somebody is a little bit more disrespectful than punching the bitch who did it, js. (22 people liked this comment)

**Payton H: **^^ shows you just how "classy" garfield kids are.

**Gabby W: **ignore them, Pay. They're just disrespectful garfield kids that would probably beat up a mentally challeneged kid too.

**Cristina Y: **the girl deserved it, end of story. (10 people liked this comment)

**Gabby W: **whatever. you don't even know the whole story.

**Lindsay R: ** notice how she couldn't fight Bianca when she was on her feet lol. she had to sneak and hit her while she wasn't looking.

**Kasey D: **this is a shame :( how does someone get away with BRUTALLY attacking somebody like that? bottom line, the girl is crazy and she needs some help. Get Better Soon, Bianca!

**Meredith G: **Regardless of the whole story, **Jo Wilson **had every right to beat her ass for spitting on her. You just don't spit on somebody for the hell of it.

**Leah M: **Daaaaamn! Go JO!

**Gabby W: **Garfield girls are so ghetto :/

**Stephanie E: **^^ Garfield girls are ghetto because your friend got beat up for spitting on someone? Four for you, **Jo Wilson, **YOU GO **JO WILSON**!

**Heather B: **right how was Jo to know that your fat friend didn't have AIDS or something? she had every right to beat her ass! Garfield girls aren't ghetto we just demand RESPECT!

**Corey J: **I just came here for the comments lol. but whatever happened, idc. I'd still hump the girl's brains out. She's hot :p (14 people liked this comment)

**Shane R: **told you guys that Jo hits hard :/ :/ :/ bitch's nose was leaking out brain matter :/

**Payton H: **she's so ghetto

**Lindsay R: **all garfield kids are ghetto **Payton H.**

**Kasey D: **the girl needs help! (7 people liked this comment)

**Lucas S: Corey **I know right? lol am I the only one that was cheering when her shirt came off? Girl is SMOKIN. (2 people liked this comment)

**April K: **Jo is not "ghetto" lmao. The only thing that's ghetto is the trashiness your friend had to spit on her. If your friend couldn't handle it, she shouldn't have spit on Jo. End of story. (32 people liked this comment)

**Alex K: Lucas **& **Corey **just shut up. (10 people liked this comment)

**Lexie G: **I would've fucked her up for spitting on me too. A+ for you, **Jo Wilson.**

**Lucas S: **dude who are you?

**Corey: **freedom of speech I can say what I want.

**Alex K: **not about my girlfriend. I suggest you shut up. If you know what's good for you, you both would shut up.

**Jackson A: **^^ Go Karev. (16 people liked this comment)

**Gabby W: **I can't believe you ghetto garfield kids really think she was right for brutally attacking my friend like that. what if she would've killed my friend? (13 people liked this comment)

**Leah M: **STFU HOE. Your friend shouldn't have spit on her, end of story!

**Stephanie E: **loooooollll Leah.

**Gabby W: **First of all, **Leah Murphy **you don't know me. Second of all, you can kiss my ass.

**Leah M: **bend over then.

**Heather B: **After she's done kissing your ass, I'd like to kick it. :p

**Payton H: **SO GHETTO!

**Meredith G: **yep. I'm just gonna go causally spit on somebody and expect not to get punched in the mouth. -_-

**Cristina Y: **you guys wouldn't be this upset if Jo was the one that got beat up lol

**April K: **Never underestimate your opponent. Just because your friend was bigger doesn't mean she couldn't get her ass kicked. Size does not equal strength. (18 people liked this comment)

**Gabby W: **Whatever. Us franklin kids are way too classy for you garfield kids anyway :P

**Shane R: **So what did we learn here today, kids? Moral to the story: Don't fuck with **Jo Wilson.**

After I read all of the comments, I exit out of my Facebook and turn back to April. "…Wow. You guys really went to bat for me."

"They were just mad because you beat their friend up. It was all in good fun, anyway. None of those Franklin girls are serious. None of them want to fight." Once again, Meredith hands me her box of popcorn. This time, I take it. "Nothing beat Murphy calling the girl a hoe, though. That part made me laugh for hours. That and the part where Alex told those boys to shut up. Those were the funniest parts."

"Nobody messes with our little Jo, okay?" April gives me a friendly pat on the back. "We have to protect your little freshman self."

"Thanks guys."

* * *

"I didn't even think I was gonna miss you as much as I do, Jo. I literally miss you so much." Just like old times, Steph is standing behind me, playing with my ponytail. "You should totally sleepover with us tomorrow night. We're staying at Heather's and you could totally come if you want to." While Steph's playing with my hair, Leah's letting me drink some of her hot chocolate and Heather's still hugging me. They only have a ten minute break for their halftime and they're spending it all with me. I feel so special. "Heather's mom won't care if you stay over too."

"I wish I could, but I'm still grounded for that fight. I'll ask when I get home, but I seriously doubt I'll be allowed. I'm not allowed to do anything. I was barely allowed to come here. I have to go straight home when I leave here. I'm not even allowed to see Alex and Shane after the game. I wasn't even sure if I was gonna be able to see you guys. I'm so far in lockup, it's not funny." I really wish time wasn't passing by so quickly. I'm so happy just being here with them. I miss Garfield so much and for the first time in a long time, I feel like I have some breathing room by being here. I don't want to leave, ever. "You guys have to hurry up and update me, before you have to go back to cheering. What's been going on at school?"

"Well… Same old, same old. We watch Leah and Shane suck face every day at lunch, Steph's tray is filled with drool over Jackson Avery and I'm busy being awesome." Heather tightens her grip around my arms. I don't even mind her hugging me.

"Leah, how's Shane?" I put my head down so Steph can properly tie off the fishtail braid she just put in my hair. "How's he been?"

"Uh, good, actually." She gives me the last little bit of her hot chocolate. "He was really down in the dumps for a couple days after you left but he's been okay lately. He's just been kinda sad that he hasn't talked to you. He thought you were avoiding him, but I'll be sure to tell him that you don't have your phone. Actually, him and your boyfriend have gotten kind of close lately, which is kind of weird…"

"Shane and Alex?" I sigh. Those are both two of the most important boys in my life at the moment. I'm really glad they have each other now that I'm gone, really I am. "I miss the both of them so much. I literally went from seeing Shane every day to not even speaking to him. My new foster mother can't freaking stand his mother. It's like she wants me all to herself and she doesn't like the thought of sharing me with Miss Kelly, so I'm not even allowed to call them from the house phone. Please make sure you tell him that I'm not mad at him, Leah. Tell him I miss him so much and I'm not avoiding him."

"I'll tell him, Jo. …But why not just tell him yourself?"

"I obviously can't. I don't have my phone. They won't even let me get on the internet. I can't Facebook, I can't text… I can't do shit."

"But you're here." She grabs me by my wrist and pulls me up. _Ow… ow… OW. _I pull away from her subtly, careful not to let on that I'm in pain. "Stand right here…" She drags me by my hoodie to the railing that's above the opening the football players come out of the locker room from. "Just stay right here. Shane stops and talks to me for a minute every time they come out of the locker rooms. I'll tell him to look up. It won't be for long, because the coach likes them to stay focused, but at least you'll talk to him." She starts walking down the steps that lead onto the field and Heather and Steph follow her. _I'm gonna see Shane?! I'M GONNA SEE SHANE!_

I lean against the railing and stare down onto the part of the field that Heather, Leah and Steph are all standing on. The three of them are waiting near the locker room exit in a little line, like a fanclub. _I hope they don't get in trouble for doing this for me. _I take a look back at April and the girls. They're all busy stuffing their faces with the nachos Cristina bought from the concession stand. _I'm so happy right now. I'm just where I need to be. I need to be here at Garfield with all my friends. I can actually breathe… I can actually smile without faking it. _While I'm waiting for them to get Shane for me, I discreetly lift up my left sleeve to see if Leah did any damage by grabbing the wrist. It's still a little bit sticky but it's starting to scab over. It stings a little bit.

_I wonder if they'll be able to get Alex for me too. I know asking them to get Shane is already a pretty big favor, but I want to see Alex too. April says he thinks I broke up with him… maybe I shouldn't tell him about the Jason thing. I'm already killing him by cutting off all contact with no explanation. I don't want the first thing I say to him after not talking to him for a week to be "I kissed my foster brother." I shouldn't tell him… should I? I should just let him know that I haven't broken up with him and I'm not mad at him. I need to explain that I don't have a phone. And I'd really like to hug him. Yeah, I'm sneaking out when I get home later. I'll do it when everyone in the house is asleep. I'll take my car, too. I have to see him._

Down on the field, some of the players have already started wondering out of the locker room. The ones that have already come out seem really happy, as they should be. We're up by one touchdown, which is kind of a big deal. We've never been up on Franklin before. Number 25 comes out of the locker room next. _SHANE! _I feel as if I'm gonna bust out into tears just seeing him. I haven't even talked to him yet, and I'm already gonna cry. I missed my best friend. One week without talking to him feels like one whole year. Leah picks up on him as soon as he steps foot out of the little opening and taps on his shoulder pad rapidly. I see her lips moving as she tells him something, which eventually leads her to point up at me. He squints his eyes as he tries to see exactly what Leah's pointing at. I raise my hand and wave, and as soon as he sees me, the look on his face says it all. He's just as happy to see me as I am to see him.

He walks kind of fast over to the spot I'm standing at and looks up at me. We're gonna have to shout if we want to hear each other, but that's okay. It's Shane! "Why didn't you tell me you were coming!? I would've told my mom to come tonight instead of staying home! She's been worried to death about you!"

"They took my phone! I literally can't do anything with the outside world!" I lean over the railing to see his face better. He looks… older. It's only been a week and my Shaney already looks grown up! "I miss you, butthead! I have so much to tell you, when I finally get my phone back!"

"I miss you too, Muhammad Ali!" He takes a quick gulp from his water bottle. "When are you going to be ungrounded?! When the girl's face heals?!"

"Shut up, butthead! I have to tell you about that! I don't know when I'm gonna be ungrounded!" I look behind him and see Alex come out of the locker room too. "…Get him for me! Tell him to come here!"

Shane walks over to Alex and points him over in my direction. _I'm gonna be sick. I can't face him… _My stomach starts hurting a little bit and I'm feeling really nauseous. I just really need him to understand. _You're sneaking out later and you're GOING to tell him about what you did. End of story. _My stomach starts hurting more and more when Alex walks over to me. I don't feel like I can do this…

"…Are you staying home tonight? Are you going anywhere?" I ask him in the lowest possible tone of voice I can, with him still being able to hear me.

"What the hell's been up with you?! I've been blowing your phone up, your Facebook! What the hell, Jo?!" He's already mad. I can just imagine what he's going to say when I tell him about the Jason thing. I really fucked up bad.

"They took my phone away from me for fighting." I don't even look him in his eyes. I can't face him. I feel like such a lousy person. "I don't have a phone, I don't have internet and I'm not allowed to use my car. Just… are you going anywhere tonight?"

"I'm going out with the team if we win this. Why? All of a sudden you want to be bothered with me?!"

"Alex, it's not even like that. It's not like that. You need to let me explain before you start jumping to conclusions. Of course I want to be bothered with you." _He's not going to forgive you for this. I can see it now. He's gonna be so pissed… _"Will you be home before 1:00? I'm gonna sneak out and come see you, because I have to talk to you. Just be home by 1:00… please?"

"…Whatever, I have a game to play. You better be there at 1:00, on the DOT. I don't appreciate being strung along. You may not feel the same way about me, but I really like you and I hate myself for that. You're okay with treating me like crap but I still stay up at night thinking about you. Stop toying around with me, Wilson."

"Wilson? How did I get all the way back down to Wilson? You were just calling me 'Jo' two seconds ago!" He glares at me. "Right…. so… 1:00? I'll be there. If I'm not there by 1:00, give me until 1:30… I'm sneaking out and I have to make sure everyone's asleep. I'll be there, I promise."

"…You better be there, Wilson."

* * *

**3:00 a.m.**

_Why are you even sitting here crying? You knew what was gonna happen before you even went over there and did it. You have no right to even be upset about it. _I'm honestly so sick of crying. It seems like all my life has consisted of within the last two weeks is crying, starving, feeling crappy and just wanting to curl up in a ball of myself and just dying. I shouldn't even have any more tears left inside of my body. How much bodily fluid can you lose before you just die? _Just stop crying about it. You knew exactly what was going to happen when you told him what you told him. Crying about it is just making you feel completely worse. Stop crying… _I can't even stop thinking about it. It's like on the backs of my eyelids, there are movie reels. And the movie is on repeat…

"_You made the first move?" He's looking at me like he's about to cry, but I already am crying. I think I might have made a mistake by telling him but I just didn't know what else to do. Either I harbor around this guilt in my chest for the rest of my life or I tell him and hope for the best. I never meant to hurt him, but that's exactly what I've done. How do you explain to someone that you just weren't thinking? "You came on to him? It was your idea?"_

"_I don't know what I was thinking… I don't even know if I was thinking at all." I scoot closer to him on his bed and try to put my hand against his, but he pulls away. God, that really hurt. He won't even let me hold his hand anymore. He doesn't even want me touching him. "I'm so sorry, Alex. I really am… I'm just so mixed up. Everything's just so confusing right now." I should just really stop trying to explain myself. It's not like anything I say even matters anymore. No matter what I do, I'm always going to be in the wrong. Just stop explaining._

"_You're confused about what this means? You're confused about me?" He buries his face in his hands and begins to shake. "I should've known this would happen. I should've known you were just too good to be true." He mumbles into his hands before picking his face up again. "Well, let me de-confuse you. We are nothing anymore, okay? I don't want a thing to do with you. You're the one that wanted to make the different-school relationship work… and for what, Wilson?!" His yelling voice is really scary, it makes me flinch away from him. I kind of wish he'd hit me. Just a quick slap across the face or something. I deserve something more than this. "You're the one who wanted to make it work… to just throw it all away? We're over. Get out, go home. I hate you."_

I never wanted that to happen, though. I just wanted to feel better about what I've done and I feel so much worse. I roll over on my side in my bed and pull the covers up to my neck. I'm not going to sleep tonight, so I'm not even going to try. I'm just going to lie here and think about what just happened. He broke up with me, that's what happened. And he said he never wants to talk to me again. He said he hates me… how do I deal with that? How do I deal with him hating me? I don't want him to hate me. I understand the break up thing… hell, I'd even understand if he whacked me across the face for the Jason thing. But I don't understand him hating me. I just don't want to think about it anymore.

My mind is running at a thousand miles a minute and I can't stop it. What's there even for me to live for anymore? What do you do when the last reason you had to even be alive is taken away, too? I'm beginning to think that I'm in way too deep here. Can anybody fix me at this point? It's like every time I take a step forward, I take three more steps backward. Every time I think I'm starting to find myself again, I just… fuck it up. I'm in way too deep.

"_You hate me? Really, you hate me?" I just look at him, at the mess I made. I think he's crying, but he won't let me see his face. He has his back turned to me and nothing in this world can possibly persuade him to face me. I'm not sure I blame him. I wouldn't be able to look at my pathetic ass either. "Don't hate me, Alex… please don't hate me."_

"_You should've thought about me hating you before you went and let that jerk touch all over you! You get all weird when I do it, but for some reason, he's allowed?!"_

"_No, Alex! He's not allowed, that's why I stopped him!"_

"_When'd you stop him? Before or after he licked your tonsils?!"_

I roll over to my other side, attempting to get comfortable with no success. Suddenly, there's a soft knock on my bedroom door. I lift my head up off the pillow and glance at whoever's coming through my door…


	23. It Never Happened

**A/N: **The rating of this story has just changed from T to M. Again, I hope you're not sensitive to graphic content. Enjoy, leave me reviews and let me know what you think of this chapter. Thanks for reading!

* * *

_I'm waking up. I feel it in my bones; enough to make my systems blow. Welcome to the new age, to the new age. Welcome to the new age, to the new age. Woah oh, oh, woah oh, I'm radioactive. Woah oh, oh woah oh, I'm radioactive, radioactive._

It should be illegal to be this tired. I feel like I haven't properly slept in so long… I could just knock out for twelve whole hours, just so I can feel rested. But knowing me, that's not possible. How does someone just not sleep? I feel like I'm just going through the motions of every day without even being completely lucid. I'm just so incredibly tired… _You were tired last night, why didn't you sleep? You should've just gone to sleep… that would've been better than what you did…or didn't do. _I don't even know why I didn't just go to sleep last night. You ever have those moments where you know for a fact that you didn't go to sleep, but you don't know exactly what you did while you just lied in bed? I didn't sleep, that's for damn sure.

I push the "pause" button on my iPod and take my headphones out of my ears. I'm pretty sure I just laid here for hours, listening to my iPod until it was a decent hour to "wake up." _You really should try to get some decent sleep sometime soon. You're gonna crash. _I roll my headphones up and put my iPod on the empty pillow beside me. I think I smell breakfast cooking downstairs which means that I should be up and about. I'll act like I actually slept. The only person that would be able to tell that I didn't go to sleep last night won't even care that I didn't. I yawn once and grit my teeth through the pain in my neck.

I slide my feet out of my covers and sit up so that I can get out of bed. _Why do you feel like somebody beat you with a stick, like you're a piñata? _I'm too stiff and sore to stretch out, so I just walk over to my dresser and grab a pair of pajama pants to throw on. The purple pair I had on last night are lying beside the dresser, so I just pick them up. When I go to shove my leg inside the pants, my foot rips through a hole in the crotch part of them. _Great. When did you rip these? _I toss the ripped pants to the side and grab another pair from the drawer. I don't feel good. I think I'm coming down with the flu or something.

My head hurts, like right around my right temple. My scalp is all sore and my arms ache a little bit too. I slide my pants up to my waist and yawn again, which makes my head hurt some more. Whoa, my neck hurts too. I'm probably just sore from not resting properly. I have to pee, so I open my bedroom door and softly pad down the hall to the bathroom. Everyone's doors are open so they must already be downstairs. I shut the bathroom door and go over to the toilet. Before I sit down on it, I take a glimpse at myself in the mirror. _Yeah, you look like you haven't slept in weeks. _ Underneath both my eyelids are dark bags, only proving that I haven't rested in a while. Around my nostrils are the dried remnants of blood.

I run my fingers through my hair, surprised when a small clump of it comes out in my hand. _Don't even start. _I shrug the hair off, bawl it up and toss it in the trashcan. My legs are so sore and tight, like I'd been stretching and using muscles I haven't used in a while. I ignore the pain and pull my pants and underwear down, though. _Careful… _"Mmmh…" I let a slight groan escape my lips because I'm uncomfortable on this toilet seat. The backs of my legs, right underneath my butt are stinging… like I have open sores or something back there, even though I know I don't. It just hurts.

Because my neck hurts too much to even support my head, I rest it against the wall next to me. I'll be okay if I don't have to pick my head up. I just need to rest it over here. When I reach over with my right arm to grab some toilet paper off the roll, the long sleeve of my t-shirt comes up a little bit, exposing a harsh, purple bruise around my wrist. My mind starts to wonder… _Don't do it. It's better if you don't. _I gently wipe myself, because unsurprisingly, my womanhood hurts a little bit too. Everything on my body hurts… even my hair hurts. I just need a minute before I get up off the toilet seat. I think I'm going to take a nap after I show my face at the breakfast table. The only time I don't ache is when I'm lying down. I hold onto the wall for support as I stand up from the toilet seat. Easily, I pull my underwear back up so that they're secure on my waist and flush the toilet.

I can't wait to take a nap. I rest my cheek against the cool tile of the bathroom wall and just close my eyes. _"Please don't…" _I snap my eyes open just as my mind starts going off and twist the nozzles to turn on the water at the faucet. _Every time you close your eyes… every single time. _I roll up the sleeves to my t-shirt and stare at both my wrists. They're both bruised but only the left one has the cuts. I'm a little bit uncomfortably hot in this long sleeved t-shirt… maybe I should take it off. _You take it off and everyone sees your dirty little secret. _I guess the long sleeves shall stay. I quickly run my hands underneath the water, letting the warmth rush over the bad bruises on both my wrists, plus the little cuts on the left one. _You need to take a shower. The hot water couldn't hurt. You need to wash everything off of you, because at this point, everything is still there. _I turn the water off and close my eyes again. I'm just so tired. _"…Please? Please, no. I said…" _I open my eyes, once again. I just don't feel good. _Yeah, you need to take another shower. _

I wipe my hands on the seat of my pajama pants and stalk, lifelessly down the steps. Underneath both my eyes is just so sore. I think it's from crying so much lately. I inhale a whiff of the downstairs air. _Smells like pancakes… maybe sausage. _I'm not even hungry, but I need to show my face. Holding onto any wall that'll offer me any type of support, I make my way into the kitchen. Just Paula and the baby are in the kitchen, but I hear laughter, talking and giggling in the living room which tells me where everyone else is at. I'm fine with the kitchen. I don't think I can walk on my own, sad as it is to say. My legs hurt too badly. _Get yourself together before she notices what's wrong with you, and you have to come clean about sneaking out last night. _I stand up straight, gritting my teeth through the obvious pain I'm in. It's not long before she notices me standing in the doorway of the kitchen. "Good morning, Jo…" She smiles at me and hands me a pile of glass plates, expecting me to set the table. _You have three other children that are willing and able to set the table, why would you wait for me to come downstairs to do it? _Without a word, I take the plates out of her hands and painfully stalk into the dining room. "Jo? Are you not feeling well?"

I shake my head and mumble "huh uh." I put a plate at every placemat around the dining room table and try to refrain from closing my eyes again. I'm not even hungry. I'd rather just be in the shower and in the bed. I'm so emotionally numb… but physically drained. I wish I was physically numb too. I can't take this pain. Paula brings the platter of pancakes into the dining room and puts them down in the middle of the table. "Did you have a nice time at the game last night, though?" I nod my head. _ That football game is the least of my problems at this point. Ask me about getting dumped by my boyfriend. Ask me about… _ "If you're feeling ill honey, you can go lie down after breakfast." I'm not even really sick. I'm just tired... "Jaden, Jason and Lys… food's ready!"

I slowly pull out the chair I always sit in so I can sit down in it. The rest of the kids playfully and energetically make their way into the dining room to chow down their breakfast. Alyssa sits in her normal seat, Jaden sits in her normal seat and so does he. _HE has a name… that I just can't stomach to say. _From across the table, we lock eyes and immediately I feel… sick. My forehead starts to sweat, my stomach starts to churn and I'm just gonna lose it. He winks at me and smiles at me… _Bathroom… Now. _I drop the glass plate I had in my hand on the floor, shattering it and make a break for the downstairs restroom. I hear Paula call after me, but I have to go. I hold my hand over my mouth TIGHTLY and slam the bathroom door behind me. I don't bother locking it.

I flip the toilet seat up and heave up whatever's in my stomach. I haven't eaten anything proper since yesterday night, so all that comes up is basically just water. My stomach doesn't care, though. It violently constricts, forcing me to throw up ANYTHING that's in there. I close my eyes, hold my middle and keep puking up water into the toilet. _"Stop!" _My jaw starts trembling like it always does before I let out some serious tears. More water spews out of my mouth and into the toilet. "No, no… no…" I whisper to myself. I don't want to do it. I don't want to think about it. So stop thinking about it! You block out everything else… block this out too! _"Owww… Please stop!... Okay! Okay… okay, stop!" _Just like the night I lost grammy, I can't breathe. I can't… breathe. _Stop thinking about it… stop thinking about it. It's okay… you're fine. Just don't think about it. _…I have to think about it. Why can't I stop? I'm imagining it, too… just stop! _Please get out of my head…_

"_I thought you said you broke up with him. He's not a problem anymore." His kisses are harsh, not at all loving. He could be a little gentler. Please stop being so rough. I didn't break up with him, he broke up with me. There's a difference. And even if we aren't together, I still don't want to do this. I don't want to. _

"_N... not tonight, okay?" I try pushing him away from me for the tenth time in a row, to no avail. Not tonight, not ever. Just leave me alone. "I'm tired… I'm really tired." I put my hands against his chest and push upwards. He must weigh a ton. I'm a pretty strong girl… But I can't get him off. "Not right now… lemme go, okay?" Don't give him any false hope… you'll never want him._

"_Aren't you glad you guys broke up?" His mouth is against mine again and this time, he shoves his tongue in my mouth. "There's nothing holding us back now, right?" Even his tongue is strong. It's exploring every inch of my mouth and I'm just disgusted._

"_I'm not…" I try pushing on his chest again, but this time I'm pushing and trying to move him over too. I could get him off if I really wanted to. Don't get me wrong. I WANT him off me… but I can't hurt him. I can't hurt him… "I'm not ready for this… I…" I'll never be ready. I just don't want to do this. I don't want to. I'm not into this. "I'm just tired…" Tell him anything. Get him off you. Don't be so weak. "I um… we don't have…" Tell him anything. "We don't have a condom."_

"_I'll pull out." He stuffs his hands up my shirt and cups my chest like he did on Tuesday, but I don't have a bra on this time. "Mmm… don't make me wait any longer. Don't make me wait…" His sloppy kisses move from my mouth to my neck. He allows all of his weight on top of me, moving my legs apart with his pelvis. Don't let this happen… don't be stupid. If you have any hope of getting Alex back, you can't let this happen. "I don't hear you saying no…"_

"…_No." What didn't sound like no to you? The "not tonight?" The "I'm not ready?" What wasn't no? Do I have to spell it? "I don't want to."_

"_Kiss me back…" His tongue forces itself inside my mouth again. "Don't make me beg for it."_

"_Can we just not do this? Please? I don't want to…" I turn my head so he's kissing my cheek instead of my lips. He's ignoring me. He cups his hands around my chest, kneading me. Don't let this happen. Alex will REALLY hate you for this. From my chest, his hands go down to the waistband of my pajama pants. "No… Jason, I'm saying no… This is me… saying no." I hear the fabric of my pajama pants rip as he pulls them off. "I said no… okay? No…" You sound pathetic, begging and pleading for him to stop. Just STOP him. "No… No, okay?" Get him away from you. There has to be a way. "STOP IT!" One of his hands comes up from below my waist and covers over my mouth. I think my nose is bleeding. I didn't think he put his hand over my face hard enough, but I guess he did. I feel blood running down to the back of my neck, collecting around my ears. _

"_You want it…" He throws my tattered pajama pants off the bed and pulls my bed sheets over the both of us. Instinctively, I clasp my hands around the waistband of my underwear now. I just won't let him in… I can do that. "It's okay… I'll be easy with you. I'll take it easy until you ask for it to be harder." I'll never ask. He grabs my hands and forces them away from my underwear. I put them back. He said all I had to say was no… I said no. I said no a lot. Why won't he stop? He gives up on my underwear and moves on to my shirt. It's not hard at all for him to yank that over my head and toss it to the floor. "Oh, baby…"_

_Don't call me baby… don't call me anything. Just get off me. I frantically clutch the sheets against my body, because I don't want him to see me like this. I don't want him to have the satisfaction of saying he's seen my body. "I really don't want to do this…" Tears are falling from my eyes now. "I think you should leave now." The blood from my nose trickles to my top lip. I use the back of my hand to wipe it away._

"_You won't be saying that in a minute." He leans up and takes his shirt off, tosses that on the floor too. "I told you that I always get what I want. And I want you…" He snatches the sheets off me and like a little kid, I cover my eyes. Like on a part during a scary movie that I really don't want to see… I cover them with my hands. You can fight him off… you can. No, I can't. I can't hurt him. "You want on top or bottom first?" He kisses my neck once more._

"…_Neither." I take my hands away from my face and just look at him, hoping he can see that it's really just me and I really don't want this. He wouldn't do this to a girl that's begging him not to, would he? Because at this point, I'm begging. I don't want this. He lowers his body down against my naked top half and kisses my neck some more. The noise… the wail that comes out of my mouth when I realize that he's not going to just leave me alone is inhumane. I don't think I've ever heard this kind of cry come out of my mouth. "…I'll scream…" I whisper to him. Well let's see. If you scream, someone will come in here. And who's really going to believe that he's in the middle of raping you? You think they're gonna believe you over him? It sounds convincing, though. "I'll scream…"_

"_You scream… and I swear to god…" The tone of his voice says that he means BUSINESS. Okay, you won't scream. It was worth a shot. "The only thing you'll be screaming is my name… got that?" He starts rocking his body between my legs and I push him away again. What else do you have to get him off you? He tries taking off my panties again, which I fight on some more. "Stop fighting me. It was cute for about ten minutes, now it's just annoying." You know, you're a real idiot. He wouldn't even be doing this if you didn't kiss him, you dumbass. It was a mistake…_

"…_I…" One last shot to get him off you. "I'm… I'm on my period." Like he can't check and see if you're lying. Stupid, stupid, stupid. There's always the option of using your strength. You know how to get him off you. Stop acting like you don't._

"_You're a bad liar." He forcefully pushes my hands above my head once again and succeeds in taking them off, finally. "God, you're sexy." I bite onto my bottom lip in an attempt to refrain from screaming for help. I need help, though. I don't want this. I stare up at the ceiling as he uses his mouth below my neck. Aside from my occasional crying murmurs, the only sound in the room is the sound of his lips meeting with my skin. I really don't want this._

"…_Please stop." I try one last time to maybe appeal to the fact that he IS a human and no human should be able to do this to another human. He once again ignores my pleas and uses one hand to keep a tight grip on my hands and the other to explore my body. I can't move… I think I'm gonna be sick… How do I get him off me, without hurting him? If I hurt him like I know I could, then I'm going to juvi for sure, aren't I? It'll just be my word against his and in this situation, who would you believe? Would you believe the foster child that's crying rape or would you believe your actual son when he says "She wanted it"? Which one would you believe? But I want him off me. I try to wriggle my way out from underneath of his grasp. Everything I say from here on out is only coming out in a whisper, filled with tears. "I said no… I said no…"_

"_You want me…" He kisses me on my lips again. "Don't you think you made me wait for it long enough?" If that's what I think it is against my leg, then I'm in deep, deep shit. If it's what I think it is, he's very ready for me. Now up until this point, I was hoping maybe he'd get his fill off of just kissing me and touching me and maybe even using his hands down there, but he's hard and I know he's going to actually do this… I need to brace myself. "You practically threw it at me on the couch then took it away…" _

"_I don't want you…" I whisper again._

"_Then why are you all wet?" With that being said, he shoves either one or two of his fingers inside me and I seriously just freeze up. I think I'm having a panic attack… or maybe a heart attack. Something's happening and I can't breathe. Whatever you do, don't black out. If you black out, you won't know anything. Stay conscious. Close your legs… maybe that'll stop him. I try to close my legs around his hand, but it's no use. His fingers are already inside me and I can't do anything about it. _

_Are you there, God? I know I haven't talked to you in a while… ever since I stopped going to Sunday school last year. But I really need you right now. Please get him off me. I don't want this anymore. I never did want it, but for some reason, telling him no just turns him on more. I can't fight him… I can't fight him off because I'm so weak right now. But please don't let this happen to me. I know I've done some real shitty things lately, but I'm sorry. This isn't your punishment for the kind of person I've been, is it? Please get him off me. If there's a lesson to be learned here, I think I learned it. I won't kiss anyone… ever again. I don't think I deserve this… do I?_

_Maybe I do deserve this. Again, none of this would be happening to me if I hadn't kissed him from the start. I kissed him… I think I let him touch me… and now he feels like he's entitled to something. Does that make him entitled? Does kissing him and being the one that made the first move entitle him to just… do this to me?_

_I'm just… numb. Comfortably numb, though. I can't feel anything from my neck down and I think that it's rather pleasant. I'd rather feel nothing at all. I look up at the ceiling again and try to patiently wait this out. I guess I can live with this, if the most he does is finger me. If this is it, then okay. What makes you happy, Josephine? Does anything make you happy anymore? When's the last time you had a real good laugh? Think about that._

_Once I get my jaw to stop trembling, I start mouthing the lyrics I was singing the last time I was really having a good laugh. "I love rock n roll… put another dime in the jukebox, baby…" It's not working… It's not working. Crazy as it is, I think I want my mom. I think I want my real mom. I want her. I know she never gave a damn about me from the jump, but she would hold me, wouldn't she? If she found out that her little girl… her flesh and blood… was in the position she's in right now… she'd hold me, wouldn't she? Not even a drug addict is that heartless. I want my mom. Or maybe Alex. Pretend this is Alex… This is Alex. You can get through it if you think it's him. No, that doesn't change the fact that I still don't want it. _

_I'm beginning to seriously wonder if Alex would even care. He made it clear to me a couple hours ago that he hated me. If he hates me, would he care what's happening to me right now? I just hope that he never finds out about this. Being that I just admitted to him that I made the first move on Jason a few days ago, he'd think for sure that I asked for this. He wouldn't believe me if I told him that I said no… I said no many times, before I just gave up and got tired of fighting. It's no use anymore. Why should I even try?_

_Below my waist, he makes one sudden movement and I feel all weird. I feel… worthless. A penny is worth more than I'm worth right now. Please get off me… And please stop making those noises. Stop… stop grunting, and groaning… it's… not right. His head is blocking my clear vision to the ceiling now. He's moving rhythmically on top of me, back and forth, in and out but I can't think of anything else but the fact that I really just want this to be over. I'd rather him kill me. It's so weird to think that he's enjoying this, while this is pure hell for me. And he lets me know that he's enjoying it, too. As if the grunting and groaning and moaning isn't enough, he grabs onto my hair and pulls it. "St…stop…c…crying…"_

_I can't stop crying. I can't stop… so he just has to deal with it. …What do you think Alex would do if he knew this? I'm leaning towards the fact that he wouldn't give a damn. He said he hates me… and he'd probably think that I'm getting what I asked for. I'm thinking that's what he'd think. I really don't think he'd do anything about it. But it's nice to think about what I'd like for him to do. I'd like for him to swoop in and save me. Yeah, that's it. I'd want him to come in, pull Jason off me and hold me. Even though he's not a cuddler, he'd let me cuddle with him and he'd hold me until I decided it was time to stop crying… wishful thinking. _

Breaking the entire memory of what happened to me while everybody was asleep last night is a loud, harsh knock on the door. The sour taste in my mouth reminds me that I just threw up and the achiness between my legs lets me know that everything I just daydreamt of… was horribly real. "Jo?" Paula's knocking on the door. "Do you mind if I come in?"

_That never happened, okay? Last night NEVER happened… You don't tell a SOUL what happened. It didn't happen… you made it all up. He never raped you. He didn't do that. Carry on about your day like nothing's wrong, because if somebody finds out… they're not gonna kick him out the house and leave him homeless. He's adopted. You're a shitty foster child. Guess who's gonna get the brunt of this, if anyone finds out? You keep this to yourself… got it? _

I clear my throat, wipe away the tears off my face and sniff. "I'll be out in a minute…. I think I just have a sour stomach." I lie through my teeth. I pick myself up off the floor, flush the vomit-filled toilet and pull myself together. Last night never happened…


	24. Gone Away

I run my tongue along the inside of my cheeks, which have been dry for the last hour. I've sipped more water than I care discuss, but no matter what, the result is still the same. It's as if I stuffed a dozen cotton balls in my mouth and sucked on them until all the saliva in my mouth was no more. That probably sounds dirty, but no pun intended… especially considering what I've just been through. I rub my top and bottom lips against one another, trying to soothe the soreness in both of them. I taste the bloody split in the bottom one the more I suck on it. My ears are ringing, my palms are tingling and everything in my vision is blurry due to the tears that are welling up in my eyes. If there's one thing I'm sick of, it's crying. No more crying after tonight, and I mean it. I'm done with the crying, I'm done with the sulking, I'm done with being… me. Something's gotta change around here.

My breathing shortens as I use my fingernail to lift up the floorboard. I reach my hand inside my secret hiding place and grab the blood-crusted razor blade and the stained washcloth. No more crying, and I mean that. I rub some of the crusted blood off the blade with my right hand and place it next to the skin on the palm of my left hand. Just to test it, I softly drag it against the cloth of the long sleeved sweater I'm wearing. Just like that, the fabric comes undone. I hardly applied any pressure to the cut and bam, it's done. A small piece of my sweater unfurls and falls to the ground, with that one little press of the blade… and I'm cutting my skin with this. When the piece of my sweater actually rips off, I again place the blade next to the skin on my palm. A tingle shoots up my spine to the base of my neck. I always feel a little on edge before I do this.

Guiding with my right index finger, I press down ever so slightly and drag. The blade leaves a lush, crimson line in its wake. I drop the blade next to my foot and press against the deep gash with the bloody washcloth. I apply the usual amount of pressure to the cut that I always do. Instead of clotting up and sticking like it usually does, the washcloth becomes drenched until the blood soaks through enough to stain the fingers I'm using to push against it. _Shit, what'd you just do? _Emerging from the washcloth-covered cut is a river of my bright red blood, collecting in the fold of my forearm. _You went deep… _The blood drips down off my elbow and starts to make a puddle on the floor next to me. I hear the droplets hitting the floor, aside from the pounding of my heartbeat in my own ears.

I slowly peel away the washcloth to access the damage. It's not bleeding that much anymore but I still feel… like I'm at a tip. Like I'm a pimple that came to a head and I need to pop myself. I pick up the soaking wet, bloody razor blade again and press it against my skin once more. This time, I dig in a little deeper and make a vertical line instead of my usual horizontal ones. "…Mmm…" I drop the blade again as more blood seeps out of my body. _There… oh god, there. That's better._ When I push the same washcloth against the newest cut, I can finally breathe. I feel amazing. Satisfied… now exhausted.

I rest my head against the wall beside the bathtub and keep breathing, like I ran a marathon and I'm out of breath. I stop holding the rag on my wrist and it falls to the ground when I do. Without moving my head, I move my eyes down to look at the newest damage. I don't know how many there are in my collection anymore. Ten…fifteen…maybe even twenty. My pale, baby-soft white skinned wrist used to be a blank canvas… now it's all decorated in shades of red, purple and off-white. Scratch that… there's got to be about thirty cuts here, starting from the base of my palm and stopping about three inches from where my arm folds. I keep my head against the wall and inch it up towards the ceiling. It's dark in here… the only light coming from the nightlight in the corner by the toilet. _How many times is this going to happen? When will he get tired of this? _My hair sticks to the back of my neck and my forehead while I just sit here…trying to breathe. My entire body is sweaty. Come to think of it, I should've taken a shower before I came down here to do my dirty little secret. _It sounded like the right idea at the time. _I couldn't wait to come down here and release myself, so excuse the fact that I'm still contaminated.

My bare feet are sweaty, as are my legs. My torso is still all sticky and damp from sweating, and not to mention, between my legs is still uncomfortably moist too. Not for the reasons girls usually get wet down there, either; but because of what he did to me… or inside me, rather. _Is this going to happen every single night? _With the hand that isn't sore from the cutting, I sweep my hair out of my face and rub my eyes. I'm so tired. _You'll never sleep again in this house, though. _Every time I fall asleep, I either see his face or he's literally there, in the flesh. No sleeping.

Whoever said that things are easier the second time around is full of bullshit. Yeah, maybe getting on a scary rollercoaster for the second time is easier than getting on it the first time. Maybe watching a scary movie the second time is easier than watching it the first time. But some things are actually worse the second time around. I'm not used to it. I'll never be used to it. The second time was definitely worse than the first time… probably because I knew what to expect and I knew that he was actually going to go all the way. Or maybe it was worse because he thought he could be more adventurous because the ice was broken last night, instead of tonight. Possibly, it was worse because he wouldn't let me just fucking lay there this time. _As if doing it to me isn't bad enough, he thought he could make me enjoy it. _And his words were dirty…

_How long does karma last? I'm a fan of what goes around comes around. But how long does this karma last? I've already figured out that the first time was for not being there when grammy died. This time was probably for nearly killing Bianca. I'll probably get it again tomorrow night for kissing him in the first place. So that's three times. Have I done anything else that requires punishment? _On the plus side, I didn't throw up on him. I thought I was going to. I felt myself getting ready to puke when he first came through the door…

I was on my way to sleep, actually. I had spent about an hour waiting up in my bed to see if he was going to come. I finally convinced myself that he wouldn't do it twice in a row, so I decided to go on to sleep. I was in that stage of consciousness and about to be out for good when I heard the door open. I thought maybe it would be Paula, checking to see if I was still awake. But then it didn't make any sense to me that Paula would be awake at 2:30 in the morning when the baby was probably going to wake up at 4:30 like she always does. It didn't take me long to realize it was him. So I did the only logical thing I could do… I pretended like I was already sleeping. Like that made a difference, though. He of course, didn't care if I was asleep or not. He climbed right into the bed next to me and had the nerve to ask me if I "was ready for round two." Immediately, I burst into tears. I'm not sure what kind of person he is, but who would do that to someone two nights in a row?

Before I had the epiphany that led me to realize what he's doing to me is something that I deserve for being a shitty person, I actually kicked him. Can you imagine that? He didn't even try to foreplay with me like he did last night. He was already hard and ready so he immediately started to take my clothes off… and I kicked him. I missed between his legs, where I wanted to kick him. My foot landed somewhere in his gut and his rock solid fist landed on the bridge of my nose for that. I'm still not sure if my nose is broken or not, but that's not the point. The point is that instead of taking my punishment like I should, I tried to be a little crybaby bitch and fight him off. And I kept trying to fight him off, too. Like kicking him in his gut wasn't enough, I had to jam my finger in his eye too. The whole finger-in-the-eye thing did nothing but get me a bloody lip and something crossed between a kiss and a strangulation. Again, what's the point of even fighting him back when it's something that I deserve?

For a moment, he got off me so he could throw my pillows onto the floor. He said that "my bed makes too much noise for what he's going to do to me tonight" so we had to do it on the floor. Now of course, I took that as my moment to make a run out the door… who wouldn't? But like they always do, the clouds opened up and God proclaimed his hatred for me and I couldn't figure out how to unlock the door from the inside. So running (or attempting to run) got me a kick in the stomach and the ability to not be able to move for about five minutes, until I got the wind back into me. I think it was around now that I gave up and let him have his way with me. It didn't last long… once I started thinking about this book I read for summer reading. I reran the plot of the book in my head about twice until he was really done, and that passed the time for me.

He did most of the talking tonight, actually. I vaguely remember him saying something about how "I've got the best p-word he's ever had" or something like that. Then I think he said something about "the young ones are the tighter ones" I don't even know, I wasn't paying attention. I think I asked him to stop twice tonight, sparing myself the meaningless cries and pleas that he always ignored. I might've asked him to please wear a condom… once I came to terms with the fact that just like last night, I wasn't getting out of it. …Yeah, I remember that entire conversation, actually.

"_Please don't do this again."_

"_Shut up."_

"…_Fine."_

"_I don't know why you act like you don't want it. You know what you're doing when you walk around the house in those tight ass shorts. You're practically begging me for it."_

"_Jason—"_

"_Oh, shut up. That's why your boyfriend broke up with you. No guy's gonna tolerate you teasing him. Unlike him though, I'm a man that knows…and takes what I want. I gave you four days to put up and you didn't do it. So shut up now."_

"_I don't want to… why are you doing this?"_

"_Shut. Up. You're ruining my mood with all your crying."_

"…_Do you at least have a condom?"_

_He just laughed in my ear._

I keep staring up at the ceiling, deep in thought. _How am I ever going to get out of this?_ I swear to god, I'd rather him beat me for two hours straight. I'd rather him put on boxing gloves and really do a number on me than to do that. I'd rather get my ass kicked all over the room. I close my eyes and move the fingers attached to my left hand. I'm sore. _…How much do you like the Myers'? Aside from him… how much do you like them? Enough to stay? Enough to keep doing this? …Enough to let him take little itty bitty pieces of you, each time he gets a little horny? On a scale of one to ten… how much do you like it here? _

I wasn't happy about coming here in the first place. I never wanted to come to a foster home. But these people were supposed to take care of me. They were supposed to be a nice alternative and a safe place to stay_. You're not safe here… No matter how much you deserve what he's doing to you, it's not safe. And your mother left you… you don't have your grandmother anymore. You know who you do have? You have yourself. And that's all you can count on in this world. So I'll ask you again… how much do you like it here? Is a roof over your head really worth it?_

_Or are you gonna get off your ass and do something about it?_

**x x x **

I just want to be alone tonight. I just want to take a little breather. I can't breathe in this house. I can't even function right. I can't eat… because I have no appetite. I can't sleep… because every time I try to fall asleep, he's there. I can't breathe in this place. I need to go somewhere that I can breathe. I don't know if I can do this any longer. If I stay here… I'm going to commit it. I can't even be alive in this house. I can't live every day, anxiously and nervously waiting to see if he's going to sneak in my room and try to have his way with me. All I have is myself anymore… and as long as I have myself, I have to take care of myself.

I open up the closet and take down all my hangers. I snatch every pair of pants, every shirt, every little THING I own off the hangers and throw them in a pile on the floor. I hold the bag to the edge of my dresser and sweep everything off it, inside the bag. I carry as much as I can in my arms from my drawers and pile everything on my bed. My iPod, my deodorant, tampons, lotion, makeup, perfume, EVERYTHING. It's 4:15 in the morning and Paula's going to be up in about 15 minutes with the baby, like she always is. Because I'm limited with time, I don't bother folding anything. I stuff everything sloppily into the four duffel bags I came here with and zip them up tight. I look around the room, making sure I have everything that's mine.

I stare at the bed I spent the few weeks lying in. All I can see is how much pain that bed was worth. All the sleepless nights I spent in it, all the tossing and turning I did in it, all the crying I did in it. The bleeding I did in it. The… losing myself I did in it. All I see is him, in that bed._"I said no… Please don't… please don't do this. I don't want to do this…" _I look away from the bed, and with that memory, I sling all four bags over my sore shoulders and inch towards the door to the best of my ability.

As quiet as I can be, I make my way down the steps. I step over the dog lying at the bottom of the steps and tiptoe into the kitchen. I don't think I'll miss any of them. I didn't know them long enough to miss any of them. I stop at the junk drawer in the kitchen to grab my car keys and my cell phone from Paula's "hiding place." I knew where my keys and my phone were the whole time. I was just too respectful to grab them, aside from that one time I snuck out on Friday. I'm never coming back. I'll come back this way every Monday to see Mrs. Who at the hospital. I'll come back this way so that I can complete my community service hours at the daycare down the street. But I never want to see the Myers house again. I don't want to see anyone in this house again, either. I'm grateful that they gave me a place to stay, but I can't stay here any longer. I'm losing myself in this place.

I drag my bags to the front door and try to make it past the dog without making him bark. I unlock the front door and drag all my bags out of and onto the front porch. I haven't the slightest idea where I'm going… but it's going to be away from here. I don't know where I'm going… There aren't many options for me, honestly. And being that it's so early in the morning, it's not like I have many choices. But hell, if push comes to shove, this car is a roof over my head and a place to stay. I don't have much, but I have this damn car.

I stuff my bags in the backseat of my car and get into the driver's seat. It smells like grammy in here… I shut the door and start it up. _Am I still a good kid? Am I still the kid that doesn't do anything reckless on the weekends? Am I still the girl that was afraid to go buy makeup? The girl that makes straight As, used to wear Polo shirts and basketball shorts and finds it hilarious to sing 80s music with my best friend? Where did that girl go?_ I back out of the driveway and drive my car straight. I want to go home, that's where I want to go. I want to go back to grammy's house and stay there. Technically, the house is mine anyway. She left it to me. I just don't officially own it until I turn eighteen. But since it belongs to me in all technicality, can't I stay there? I know one thing. I can't go far. I might fall asleep at the wheel if I drive anywhere far. I need somewhere that I can take a bath and lie down. _Go to Shane's. They're always happy to see you there. _…Shane's house is out of the question, isn't it? If I go there, he'll definitely ask questions. He'll ask me what I'm doing there and then he'll wake his mom and his mom could get into real trouble for having me there when I'm not supposed to be there. I'll go to his house on Monday. Monday will give the Myers' time to cool down. Monday, I'll go to Shane's. I'll do it while he's at school, so I don't have to deal with both him AND his mother asking questions. _How about Stephanie's? _Steph and I aren't the best of friends, but I know her family and they know who I am too. …No, it's still too early to just show up at Steph's. _I know where you can go_… It's nearly 4:30 in the morning, but it's worth a shot, isn't it?

I don't usually text while I'm driving, but I reach over and power up my phone for the first time since Friday. Once everything on it loads, I go to my messages and find the number I'm looking for. I ask, with one simple text message…

**Sun, Nov 2, 2013**

**4:33 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **are you awake?

* * *

_How long are you going to sit here and wait for him to answer? Clearly he's asleep… like you should be. _Parked outside his house, I'm sitting in the driver's seat of my car just staring at my phone as if staring will get me a reply. He's my only option, and quite frankly, he's the only person that I want. He hates me, which is… okay. I mean, I'm not alright with it but I'm dealing with it. I wish he didn't hate me, but he does and there's nothing I can do about it. _It won't be too bad for you to just sleep in here tonight. You can go to Shane's in the morning and just deal with whatever consequences the Myers might bring on you. Shane's house is the first place they'll look, but it'll beat waiting around for a hot shower in your car. _I've been waiting for fifteen minutes for him to text me back and still, nothing. I'm about to just give up.

I've contemplated knocking on the door… but what if he doesn't answer? What if someone else answers? Then what? Even worse than that, what if he DOES answer? And what if he tells me to go away? _I think he'd at least let you take a shower, at the bare minimum. I just need a place to wash myself at. I need some place to wash Jason away from me, because as of right now, he's still on me… and in me. _ I can't bring myself to start the car again. I can't bring myself to start the car and drive off up the road to Shane's. I don't want Shane right now, which is weird. I usually always want Shane. But I don't. The only person in this world I want is him. The only person I can stand the thought of… is him. I unlock my phone again and try calling him this time. He has to answer… please answer. It rings four times then goes to voicemail. Shit.

What if he's not even home? OH GOD, what if he's with another girl already?! I put my head against the steering wheel and sigh, because that's probably exactly where he's at. Obviously, Alex isn't ugly. He probably didn't have any trouble at all getting with another girl. I don't think he's home. When his voicemail beeps, I clear my throat and try to mask the sadness in my voice. "H..Hey, Alex… it's me. …Listen, I know I'm the last person you want to talk to…and I don't blame you. But please call me back if you get this… Please? I'm sorry… and I know I've been saying that a lot, but I really mean it. I'm sorry for everything." I hang up the phone and keep my head against the steering wheel.

Would I be better off just going back to the Myers? If I go to Shane's, that's the first place they'll look for me. And Miss Kelly could get into real trouble for having me there because knowing her, she'd try to keep me. Alex clearly isn't answering his phone. I don't have anywhere else I can go to take a shower and get some sleep. I'm shit outta luck here. I should've never run away without a backup plan. This is what my stupid ass gets.

On the seat next to me, my phone starts buzzing. _Alex! _I pick it up and look at the caller ID. Blocked number. Damn. I toss it back on the seat and lie my head against the steering wheel again. _He really does hate me, I'm convinced. Just go back to the Myers house. It's not too late to just go back. This is what you get for not facing up to your punishment, anyway. You know damn well karma wasn't done biting you in the ass. _I pick up my phone again just to see what time it is. I tap my messages, which is full of messages I didn't open up from when my phone was confiscated. _Wait, it says you have an unread message from 4:40 this morning. _I tap on it.

**Alex: **What part of LEAVE ME ALONE don't u understand? Stop calling stop txting just STOP

I really blew it with him… he just texted me that. So he's awake then…

**Me: **are you home? alex please. i know im a bitch and all that but please just answer me then you can go back to hating me.

**Alex: **What do u want from me?

**Me: **are you home?

**Alex: **no

**Me: ** :( where are you then? sorry if you don't want to answer its okay.

**Alex: **im not ur business anymore. Its early n im trying to sleep. Bye Wilson

**Me: **ALEX LISTEN TO ME. WHERE ARE YOU? I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING AROUND PLEASE DON'T IGNORE ME.

**Alex: **I'm in my bed sleeping! Leave me alone damn!

**Me: **i thought you said you aren't home?

**Alex: **I DON'T WANT YOU STOPPING BY. Now leave me alone. I'm serious!

**Me: **too late, i'm already outside. can you just open your door? i really want to talk to you.

**Alex: **wow

**Me: **are you gonna let me in or not?

**Alex: **not.

**Me: **omfg will you just forgive me? i made a mistake!

**Alex: **bs. U know how many girls have tried 2 get with me? I turned them all down bc I knew I had u to think about.

**Me: **okay and i thank you for that but damn! it was a mistake! will you just open the damn door? i really need you right now. i need you. fuck everything i just want you.

**Alex: **go away b4 I call the cops

**Me: **omfg. really? stop treating me like this! it was one bad mistake! i screwed up! like you never screw up!

**Alex: **ur really starting to piss me off now

**Me: **just open the door!

**Alex: **NO.

**Me: **goddammit. why are you being so mean? i said im sorry and i really am. alex please. i seriously don't have anyone else but you.

**Alex: **wtf are u talking about? u don't have me either. u lost me the second u cheated

**Me: **OMFG. go ahead, call me a bitch, do whatever will make you feel better. just open your door. i need you so bad right now im so messed up

**Alex: **where tf are u even at? im looking out the front window and i don't see u.

**Me: **im in my car. will u just talk to me? idc if you don't talk, ill talk. just hear me out.

**Alex: **u got 5 mins before i go back 2 bed

_Oh my god, thank you! _I don't waste a minute. I lock my phone back up, clutch it in my hands, open up the door and get out of my car. If my legs weren't so sore, I'd run up his driveway. The light to his porch is on, which lets me know that he really is here. _I don't know what I'm going to say to him. I'm going to apologize, that's for sure. I'm going to apologize and I'm probably going to cry. But I won't tell him that I had sex with Jason. He'll hate me FOREVER if I do that. _I hold onto the railing and climb the steps to get onto his porch. I haven't even started talking yet and I'm already crying. There's nobody else in this world that I want more than him right now. He's the only one… I realize how ridiculous I probably look right now, but I'm just so desperate. I want him so badly. I'm pathetic, donning a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants, an oversized sweater and slippers. My hair is a sweaty, poofy, frizzy, wavy mess and my face is probably still all gross looking from Jason hitting me, but I just don't care. I need him.

His front door opens up and he steps outside. I can tell that he really was sleeping. He has on a brown wife-beater tank top and a pair of pajama pants. He's barefoot, his hair's all messed up and he looks tired. I have five minutes to convince him that I'm sorry. When he looks at me, his entire face just… changes. I can't read his expression, but his eyes are wide and he looks like he might be pissed off… probably just from seeing me. I hope he doesn't shut the door on me.

"You said I have five minutes? Okay…" I cross my arms across my chest and just start rattling things off. "First of all, I'm so sorry for what I did. I'm sorry for everything, actually. But I'm mostly sorry for kissing Jason. It didn't mean anything to me…. I wasn't even thinking when I did it. I'm just… I'm all screwed up right now, Alex. And I really need you to just… get it. Nobody else does. Nobody else gets that I'm not… myself, right now. But I need you to get it. I need you to get that I made a shitty, shitty mistake and I'm a shitty person but I'm a shitty person that really cares about you. I… I didn't even know what I was doing. I wasn't drunk or anything, but I was just so confused. But I'm not confused anymore. I'm not confused and I know what I want… and I want you. But I need you to get that even though I did a shitty thing… I still care about you. Please just—"

"What the hell happened to your face?" He puts his hand up and interrupts me. "I'm not even…. I'm not even kidding right now, Jo. What happened to your face?"

"It's a really long story, but what I'm trying to say is that—"

"I don't give a damn how long the story is. Who hit you?" His face is all red and the veins in his neck are kind of popping out. He's mad…

"It doesn't matter! Alex, listen to me!" He's so worried about my face, which doesn't even hurt. He's giving me FIVE minutes to explain everything to him and he's wasting it!

He forcefully grabs my arm and pulls me closer to him, like he means business. "Jo, I swear to god, if you don't answer me..." He's talking to me through clenched teeth. "WHAT happened to your face?" I just stare into his eyes. I can't tell him the whole story, but I can manipulate what I do tell him… "Did that punk hit you? ANSWER me."

"…Yes, but it doesn't even matter because I'm never seeing him again. I swear I'm never going to speak to him ever again."

"…You're damn right about that." He lets my arm go and sort of pushes me away. I get that his anger isn't really directed towards me. "Me and you are going to get in that car, and you're going to take me to that house… you understand me? And you're going to show me where I can find him. And I swear to god…"

"It's not even worth it. I don't ever want to go back there."

"NOT WORTH IT? LOOK AT YOUR FACE! He hit you!"

"…We were broken up when he did it. It wasn't even… he just… he just punched me, then slapped me. That's it. It didn't hurt, I didn't cry and it's not even worth getting mad over."

"I don't give a…" He grips onto his hair like he wants to rip it out his damn self. "DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND THAT **NOBODY **TOUCHES YOU? I don't know why you don't get that." He starts pacing back and forth on the porch. "I'm the ONLY one that's allowed to touch you… the ONLY one. I don't care if he was patting you on the back, giving you a high five or getting LINT out of your hair. He doesn't get to touch you. I don't give a damn… nobody touches you. As long as you're mine, NOBODY touches you." He stops pacing. "I've gotta kill him. He hit you in your face? TWICE?! I… I gotta kill him. I gotta kill him…"

"…Why do you even care?" I roll my eyes.

"…Are you serious right now?"

"Yeah. You said you hate me… why do you even care?"

"Get your ass in the house." He grabs me by my sweater and drags me inside the house. "Why did he hit you in the first place? What made him even think about touching you?"

"…I said something to him and it pissed him off." I lie straight through my teeth. If I tell him the real reason Jason and I fought, he'd kill me AND him. He went crazy over just knowing that he hit me… what would he do if he knew that he raped me? He raped twice… what would Alex do if he knew that?

He slams the door behind us and keeps dragging me all around by the collar of my sweater. I still get that his anger isn't really directed at me. "That's another rule, okay?" When we get to his bedroom, he shuts the door and turns on the light. "Nobody's allowed to touch you. I don't care what they SAY to you, but if they touch you…" He just shakes his head. "Do you want to take a shower?"

"Please?"

"Come on." He grabs me by my collar again and drags me down the hall to the bathroom. "Left handle is hot, right handle is cold. Pull the lever to start the shower." He grabs a towel and a washcloth out of the cupboard for me. "Come back to my room when you're done…" He mumbles and leaves out of the bathroom, slowly shutting the door behind him. Without even thinking about it, I pull my pants down to take them off. The door opens up again. "Wilson?"

"…Yeah?" I pull my sweater down to cover my almost-nude bottom half.

"…When I say I hate you…. what I really mean is…" He starts stuttering. "I mean… what I… what I really want to say is that I… I think I… I might… you know… I guess I l..."

"Alex, I know." I stop him from even finishing the sentence, putting him out of his misery. "…Me too."


	25. Really?

"Are you going to tell me what the hell you're doing here or is that top secret information, too?" Like he's been doing for the last ten minutes, he pulls apart a section of my hair and slowly, softly runs a brush through it. My scalp is just so sore, I assume from Jason yanking all over it. I didn't get to properly wash and condition my hair like I need to, but even just rinsing through it in the shower with plain water, it was just coming out. Being that my hair is naturally thick, I tend to shed a lot anyway. But the way my hair was coming out in the shower isn't even shedding. It's just falling out by the handful, which is making me question just how hard he was pulling on my hair. "You're not gonna expect me to keep believing that all he did was hit you a couple times in the face, are you?"

I feel a lot better now that I've taken a shower, and that's the truth. Of course I don't feel completely whole again, but the hot water did help me. My back is still sore; my legs are still sore and of course, my wrist stings. But aside from all of those problems, I'm okay. The bridge of my nose, where he punched me is a little bit uncomfortable, but not sore. "Can you open a window, please? I'm really hot." With my knees pulled into my chest, I rest my chin atop of them. I still haven't figured out exactly how to manipulate the story to tell him what he needs to know, without admitting that I had sex twice with Jason. I don't want to lie to him but I also just don't want him to know that. I just got him to stop being mad at me.

"You wouldn't be hot if you let me put you in a t-shirt. You're the one dressed like we're in Alaska." He puts the brush down on the nightstand beside the spot on his bed that we're sitting at and walks over to his window. The long sleeved shirt he gave me is comfortable and all, but I'm just hot in it. I can't wear a t-shirt until at least tomorrow. It takes a couple days for the redness on my wrist to go away after I just did that to it. "Dude, are you gonna tell me why you're being so weird or are you gonna just leave me in the dark?" He sits back behind me and resumes brushing my hair for me.

"I'm not being weird." I put my knees down flat against the bed and grab the thick ponytail holder off the pillow next to me. I hand it back to him so he can put my still-damp hair up. I actually didn't have to hold a gun to his head to get him to brush my hair. He did it on his own. "…I'm just tired." Which isn't really a lie, either. I'm exhausted, drained, tired, energy-less… whatever you want to call it. _Are you being weird? _Aside from the fact that it's scorching hot in his room and I'm wearing one of his old comic book t-shirts and a baggy pair of his pajama pants, I don't think I'm being weird. Something inside me just won't allow myself to wear shorts around him when I'm too tired to run out to my car to grab a pair of underwear. No underwear, no bra. Which in turn translates to me wearing anything BUT a tank top and a pair of shorts around him. _He's not like Jason, though. He wouldn't do that to you, even if you were "dressing like you want it." _

"Let's lay down." Ever since he was dragging me around by my collar earlier, he's been nothing but gentle with me. It's weird to feel him touch me so lightly and gingerly because he's just so bulky. The muscles in his arms are bigger than my entire head, yet he can be so easy with me. How is it that Jason was much scrawnier than Alex, but he was able to just be so rough? Alex easily, but still forcefully lies me down on a pillow on the left side of his bed. "It's getting late anyway." He pulls the covers up over me and makes sure that every part of my body is covered. "Maybe tomorrow morning you'll explain to me where all this shit on your body came from."

"…What shit all over my body?" I lift my head up from the pillow just a little to look at him. _Is he able to tell that I had sex with Jason? Oh my god, I'm busted… _"What are you talking about?" I ask again.

"Nothing." He pulls back the covers on the right side of the bed and climbs inside it, right next to me. Before he lies down, he reaches over and turns off the light so that we're both laying in complete darkness, aside from the sunrise just barely peaking its way through his curtains. I feel him scooting over next to me and my whole body just… tenses. _Calm down… he's not… he's not Jason. _"Just tell me one thing before we go to bed…" One of his hands wraps itself around my hip. My chest tightens up and I'm finding it even harder to breathe. His other hand rests in the middle of my back and he pulls both himself and my body towards the middle of the bed. _You've got to breathe. You have to breathe. It's Alex… _

"…What do you want to know?" My stomach is just churning, about to make me puke. I really hope I'm not sick all over his bed because that would be the epitome of embarrassing. Why can't I just chill out? I know it's Alex and I know he won't hurt me. He's just holding me. He's allowed to touch me. I need to loosen up.

"The thing on your neck…" He sounds like he might be a little bit upset but trying to hide it. "That's not a hickey, is it?" He puts both his hands on my back and pulls me a little bit closer to him. Too close… I can't breathe. Is it just me or is the air getting thinner? "You can tell me if it is… I broke up with you so if you were kissing other dudes, I can't really get mad… but I kinda gotta know if it's one."

"What thing on my neck?" I haven't looked in a mirror in at all tonight, so whatever he's talking about, I'm seriously oblivious too. I can't bring myself to look in a mirror. If I look in a mirror, I don't know if I'll like the person staring back at me. I sit up so that I'm straight upwards in his bed and I start running both my hands across my neck. "What are you talking about?"

He reaches over again and turns on his lamp. "Right here." He holds his hand out to my neck and pushes two fingers just below the nape of my neck, a couple spaces away from my ear. "It's all red and turning purple." His eyes narrow out just a little and he tilts my head downward so he can get a closer look. "Please tell me it's a hickey."

"…I thought you didn't want it to be a hickey?" I swat his hand away and push rather hard against the spot he was just touching. It's kind of sore but it's not really all that painful. I don't think it's a hickey, because Jason didn't really kiss me on my neck much tonight and it wasn't right here when he was kissing my neck. "Now you're begging for it to be one?"

He slaps at my hands so I'll take them away from my neck and puts his fingers back against the sore spot. "Stop lying to me, okay?" Softly, he pushes against the mark and slowly opens up his hand so that it's wrapped around my neck in a strangling position. "He was choking on you, too?" He slides his hand all around, like he's lining his fingers up. "My hand lines right up, so don't lie to me about it. Was he choking you?" I look down at the dark blue sheets that are on his bed and nod my head. He takes his hands off of me and puts them over his face, and he's silent for a very long time. I think he might be crying.

"Alex…" I whisper his name and put my hand against the stocky, muscle of his shoulder blade. He really shouldn't cry over it. It's not that big of a deal, and like he said, we were broken up. Plus, it's just me. If he knew what actually happened, he'd be okay with just a choke… I think. _If he's crying over him choking you, he'd probably die over him raping you. That'd kill him. You better not tell him. _"I'm okay, though. Don't cry… okay?" He shrugs my hand off his shoulder and keeps his face buried in his own hands. I take his hint and stop touching him.

"I'm not crying… I need you to talk to me." His voice is muffled by the fact that he's talking into his hands. "Talk to me."

"About what?"

"Anything." His breathing is really, really slow. "I don't care… just say something. Anything that'll stop me from getting in the car and driving over there."

"…Um…" _Talk to him. Say something to him. Tell him a story. Tell him something he doesn't know about you. Tell something that you'd like for him to know about you. Something you think he should know… tell him something. _

"SAY SOMETHING, JO. Talk to me… 'cause I'd really like to take a trip across town right now. I'm so tempted to—"

"I… got my teeth knocked out once." _Really? Is that the best you could come up with? _Whatever… it seems to be working. He already took one hand off his face. _Keep going. _"They were baby teeth, so they were coming out anyway, but still." His breathing is starting to normalize again. It's working. "I was trick or treating with Shane and he accidentally ripped my teeth out." A smile spreads across my face as I start to remember that day. "Me and Shane always had Halloween costumes that went together… and we were in fourth grade and he had an obsession with the Jerry Springer show. He saw something on there one day and for some reason, he wanted to be a…" My face blushes bright red, but only because I'm embarrassed FOR Shane. "He wanted to be a 'baby daddy'. And back then, his mom and my gram really liked to make our costumes from scratch. So when he told his mom that he wanted to be a baby daddy, his mom told him no of course. Well…" I giggle softly. "In the meantime, I went to the drugstore with my gram and I saw a Sugar Baby costume. Sugar Babies are… you know… you know those little caramel candies? They look like little marbles and they're caramel and they're called Sugar Babies? I wanted to be a Sugar Baby lollipop. So I demanded that my gram make me one of those costumes."

He turns his head to me, listening to what I'm saying. He seems like he's calm now but I don't want to take any chances, so just to be on the safe side, I'll finish my story.

"Well, poor Shane was upset because all he really wanted to be for Halloween was a baby daddy. So we came to an agreement." I smile again. "His mom let him wear one of his dad's business suits and a top hat from his closet…and my gram bought me footie pajamas, a pink pacifier and a big lollipop. She drew freckles on my cheeks with black eyeliner, threw my hair up into two pig tails and I was a "sugar" baby for Halloween… and Shane was my dad. So he was a baby daddy and I was a sugar baby."

He actually laughs. "…So what does this have to do with you getting your teeth knocked out?"

I put my hand up while I'm laughing. "I'm getting there… I'm getting there." I fold my hands in my lap and lick my lips. "Part of our compromise was that he would give me all of his Sugar Baby candies that he got that year. Well… he really wanted one, and I wanted it too. And if you know how those candies are. They're all sticky and really hard to chew…" I'm blushing again, but this time because I'm embarrassed for myself. "I shoved the entire box of Sugar Babies in my mouth so he wouldn't get them and I tried to chew them all. And they got stuck on my teeth, of course. So Shane reached in my mouth, ripped the chewed up wad of candy out and took my two front teeth with him."

"Geez." He starts laughing pretty hard. "You and Ross always do things like that? Beat each other up? Dress up in weird costumes?"

"Oh yeah. I usually won all the fights we got into." I lie back down against the pillow and look up at the ceiling. "He was a frying pan for Halloween once and I wrapped myself in tin foil and went as a leftover breadstick…. He was a ketchup packet and I was a mustard packet. Year before last, he was Mario and I was Princess Peach. Year before that, Lilo and Stitch. I was Lilo, he was Stitch. Last year he was Peter Pan and I was Tinkerbell…" I look over at him and offer him my hand, just to see if he wants to hold it by any chance. "What were your Halloween costumes like when you were younger?"

To my surprise, he shuts off his lamp again, takes my hand inside of his and lies down next to me. "Puppy dog… A gremlin once… Inspector Gadget… most recently a monster. Lame things. Halloween's kind of lame…always thought it was."

"Then why'd you ever dress up?"

"I didn't always think it was lame. I was the dog when I was little, the gremlin when I was little, Inspector Gadget when I was little too. I only dressed up like a monster last year because Avery had a costume party. All I did was put on horns."

"…What'd you do this Halloween?" _Halloween used to be my favorite holiday when I was little. I used to love dressing up and begging for candy that I couldn't eat. There was some candy that I could eat… mostly the candy without milk in it, but still. It was so fun. I can't believe that Halloween just kind of skipped over me this time. I was miserable on Halloween this year._

"Convinced my mom to leave me alone about taking Amber around trick or treating… stayed in the house and ate all her candy… the usual."

"…You're kind of a douche." I pull some covers up to my neck and sigh. "It wouldn't have hurt you to take your sister trick or treating. She's like, what? Seven?" _I'm just guessing here. I don't really know how old either of his siblings are. Come to think of it, I've never even met them. _"Let her have fun with it. It's only a matter of time until she decides to take off her clothes, put on a pair of bunny ears and call that a costume. You really should've taken her trick or treating."

"Aaron ended up taking her with him and his friends." He squeezes my hand softly, just to let me know that he's still here for me. "Relax, dude. I spend every waking moment of my life with those kids. I didn't want to spend Halloween with them too."

"Are they good kids?" Even though it's too dark in the room for us to see one another, I turn my head to the side and look at him. "Your brother and sister… are they good kids?

"They're not bad kids." I feel the covers rustle with the shrug of his shoulders. "They talk too much, but all eight and eleven year olds do. Amber especially. She asks too many questions…" He mumbles.

"When am I going to meet them?"

"I thought you already did, that one night…"

"You brought me in the house, introduced me to them and your mom then hid me away in your room for the rest of the night. That's not meeting someone." I know I felt a little bit weird earlier about him touching me and trying to hold me, but I feel better now. I think I'm ready now. I scoot over really slowly and lie my head on his shoulder. Instinctively, he pulls away from me for a second but when he realizes that he's okay with it, he lets me go. "I doubt they even remember me."

"They remember you. Trust me, they do." He scoots closer to me too, so that I'm more comfortable lying on him. "Amber tried to add you on Facebook… I had to hold your last name hostage until she left me alone about it."

"…You should've let her add me. I would've accepted… I don't do much on Facebook anyway." The more I lay here on this pillow in the darkness of his room, the more I realize just how exhausted I really am. I give in to everything I'm feeling and just allow myself to close my eyes. _You can rest here. It's Alex. You're safer here than you are in any other place in this world. You can rest. _Purely out of instinct, I try to curl myself up into a ball. I figure, since it's hard to get me to uncurl myself, I'm least likely to have anything done to me in my sleep this way. My knees collide with Alex's thigh, though. "…Move over a little." I mumble, in the almost-sleep state. I'm so tired… I shake my hand out of his hand and put it underneath the pillow. "Move over…" I say again, whispering this time because I'm fading in and out of consciousness.

"Just go to sleep." He does as I asked him to and moves over.

I know I'm just about ready to fall into a very deep sleep for the first time in weeks, because my mind starts racing like it always does before I knock out like a light. _It's not permanent, but at least you have a place to sleep tonight. You have a bed to sleep in, a place to be warm in and someone that won't hurt you. What time are you going to go to Shane's tomorrow? If it's not a problem, you could probably stay there until you figure something else out. …I wish I could stay at Alex's. I wish I could stay here… I feel safe here. But I have Shane's house to stay at. You should probably call before you show up at Shane's. How long do you think it's gonna take for the Myers' to notice that you're gone? You think Paula's noticed already? You think they've already suck the cops on you? They wouldn't think to look here at Alex's if they are looking for you already. Or maybe they just won't even care that you ran away. They wouldn't send you back to the Myers', would they? What if they do? I wonder if the cops would believe you. If you told them what he did to you, would they believe it? What if you told them that it happened twice? The cops would have to believe you… But then telling the cops would also mean that Alex would know. You can't tell anybody, remember? You can't tell anybody what he did. Nobody would believe you in the first place, and you'd lose Alex for SURE. You can't just… _When my thoughts start trailing off, I know that I'm about to be asleep for good.

Hands. Hands are on my knees. Hands are on my knees, pushing them downwards so that my legs are straight. _See, I told you that you can't go to sleep! _My eyes snap open quickly and I immediately feel pressure in my chest. Like someone just set a twenty pound weight on my chest and is expecting me to be able to breathe. I'm suffocating. I lock my legs up, but the hands are still trying to push them downwards. "No, no… NO!" I use my elbows to push myself up out of the bed and my feet just flail out in a kicking motion. "GET OFF ME! STOP IT! PLEASE STOP IT!" Twenty pound weight on my chest, thirty pound weight… "I SAID GET OFF ME! GET OFF!"

"Whoa… whoa…" He's crushing me! He's squeezing me… he's crushing me, squeezing me all around my chest... he's crushing me. I use my elbows and dig them into his chest. _Please get off… please… I just want to sleep tonight. _I'm trying to get away, but he's got me too tight. I grab onto the edge of the bed and try to pull myself out of his grasp and out of the bed. I'm gonna be sick… I might even wet myself. _Please don't do this. _"HEY, CALM DOWN!" He grabs my arms… get off me. Get off me… He slams me down onto the bed and lies down on top of me. He's crushing me… why me again? Why?

"No, lemme go… Let me… Lemme GO!" I push against his chest with the palms of my hands. Tears are dribbling out of my eyes, streaming towards the back of my head and tickling my ears. "Let go of me!" _Not three times in a row. Not three times. He's suffocating me. He's killing me. I have to go, I have to get out of this house. I have to get out of this house. I want Alex… _"ALEX!"

"Stop screaming!" He puts his hand over my mouth. It's always "stop screaming." It goes in order, I've picked up on that. It's "stop screaming", "shut up", then "you want it." _No please… please god, no… Not again. How many times is he gonna do this to me?! _

"Someone please help me! ALEX!"

"Shhh!" He grabs onto my shoulders and shakes me so hard that my head crashes back down into the pillow twice. "Wake up, okay?! It's me… You're okay!" He keeps shaking me. "Wake UP!" _I'm not even sleeping! Just get off me! _"Do you hear me?" I jam my palm up into his chest again. _Please get off. _"It's me… It's me…" Again, he squeezes me. He's… he's hugging me? No… he's holding me. "Don't scream. What's your problem?" He forces my head onto his chest and keeps squeezing me. "I'm not going to hurt you or anything…"

"…Alex?" I'm breathing so hard I can't even hear myself think anymore. _It's not Jason, idiot. It's not Jason. Is it really Alex? _It smells like him… just like him. Like his cologne and laundry detergent. _You totally just freaked out for no reason. _"…Alex…"

"Yeah, it's me." He sounds really…freaked out. "I'm sorry. I didn't even mean to… I didn't think I was hurting you. I just wanted to get your knees out of my leg and hold you, like you're always asking me to do. But it's fine… I won't touch you." I don't even have anything else to say to him. I'm just sorry that I flipped out on him like that, but I'm sure he's sick and tired of hearing me apologize for a lifetime. _You really just freaked out on him. You really just flipped out, thinking he was actually going to do something to you. Not every guy is like Jason. Not every guy is going to hurt you. You're so messed up… _

Instead of apologizing to him for what just happened, I just clunk my head against his chest and sigh while the salty tears start flooding my face. _You're doing a real shitty job of keeping this a secret. _He hasn't let go of me yet, even though he said he wouldn't touch me. I don't want him to let go… His arms are around my stomach and his legs are pinning mine down to the bed, like he's restraining me.

"…Are you okay?" He whispers to me. I shake my head, because I can't lie to him. "I'm sorry. All I was doing was trying to… hold you while you slept… that's all. I wasn't going to hurt you. I'll…" He starts whispering, directly into my ear. "I'll never hurt you, Jo… and you know that." _I know you wouldn't. You just don't get it. _"You trust me, don't you? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you." _You didn't. _"Where'd I hurt you? Did I hurt you when I grabbed your legs?" I shake my head again. "Where'd I hurt you, then? I didn't mean to. I'm sorry." _You didn't hurt me…you just don't get it. _"I really didn't mean to. I just… I… sometimes I don't know my own strength and it's a bad thing but I really wouldn't hurt you on purpose. I didn't hurt you bad, did I?" I shake my head. "Will you just talk to me?"

I take a deep breath so that I can let out another round of tears and sniff. I just don't have anything to say for myself right now. I'm such an idiot. "Are you crying?" _God, you really have to get your shit together. You can't just go freaking out on him every time he touches you. HE IS NOT HIM. Alex isn't Jason. Alex is Alex and Jason is Jason. There's a difference. Stop thinking they're the same. Stop thinking he's him. Stop… hallucinating. _"Just tell me where I hurt you at… let me know, so I can take a look at it… I got you on your legs, didn't I?" He starts letting me go.

"No… hold me." I murmur through heavy, thick tears. I grab onto the collar of his shirt and squeeze. I don't ever want him to let me go. Don't ever let me go. I shouldn't have even come here. I should've just left him alone when he said that he wasn't going to open the door for me. If I had just gone away, this wouldn't have happened. I wouldn't have had that flashback and I wouldn't have just freaked out on him like that. But dear God, I'm so glad that he let me in. I just really need him to hold me right now. "You didn't hurt me. I'm okay… just hold me." I whisper. "Please…"

"Then why'd you tell me to get off? If I hurt you, you can tell me. Let me know…I'll never do it again." He squeezes me tight, once again. "Let me know where I hurt you."

"You didn't…"

"Then why'd you snap out like that? You were acting like I was about to kill you. One minute you were falling asleep then the next minute you were screaming bloody freaking murder. You were acting like I just crossed you in a dark alley and you were about to lose your life. What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing…my dream just started off bad." Which again, isn't totally a lie. A hallucination is a dream, isn't it? If that's even what I was doing…

"You screamed as soon as I touched you, so I just thought that maybe I grabbed your leg too hard… maybe I moved you too soon and scared you…" He starts to rub my back. "You usually beg for me to hold you. I was just trying to do what I thought you wanted. You don't usually scream when I touch you." He kisses the top of my head. "You don't usually scream when…" His voice just trails off and the grasp he has against me sort of… loosens up. "…My fucking god… REALLY?!"

"I said hold me!" I pull him closer to me again. "Don't let me go."

"No… NO, Jo… NO." He lets me go completely and springs up out of his bed. "I knew you were having an issue but…THAT?! SERIOUSLY?!" I sit up too and try my damnedest to see him through the pitch-blackness of his room. "I don't know what I was fucking thinking… why else would you show up at my doorstep at 4:30 in the fucking morning?" He's mumbling to himself and moving quite fast around the room.

"Just get back in the bed, okay? I'm sorry…" I feel like someone just punched a hole clean through my stomach. I feel so empty. He's mad at me… all over again. "I'm sorry…I'm sorry… just let me explain. Let me explain…"

"You don't need to explain shit to me." I think I see him stomping on shoes. "…Lie down. Go to sleep…" He turns on a light in the far left side of his room so that it's not disturbing me much. He has on a sweatshirt, sweatpants and a pair of sneakers. Where is he going? He can't just leave me here. I'm sorry… I blew it. "I mean it. You lie down and go to sleep. Don't wait up for me. I'll be RIGHT back."

"No, please don't leave!" I feel so lost, and he hasn't even left yet. I just blew everything. I blew EVERYTHING. He walks over towards his door and puts his hand on the doorknob. "Alex, just let me explain… don't hate me…"

"…What the hell…" He pulls his hand back away from the knob. "You didn't DO ANYTHING. Why the hell…" He actually comes back to the bed. "Look at me…. Look at me, Jo." He lifts my chin up with his hand and looks me dead in my eyes. "Give me one reason why I should be mad at you… for this." He keeps looking at me. "…The only reason I'm mad is because you didn't tell me sooner. You should've TOLD me, for fuck's sake. You should've TOLD me."

"Just don't leave me. Please…"

"Now give me one reason I should let him live." He stops touching me. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't hunt him down and KILL him. After what he did to you…" I can't look at him anymore. "I'm mad at myself for being so damn stupid. …Why else would your face look like that? Why else would you want to jump in the shower immediately?"

"I'm sorry."

"Quit apologizing. Give me one damn reason why I should let him live…" He bawls his hands up into fists and clenches them tight. "I already told you that NOBODY touches you…."

"I just want to forget about it…" I bury my face inside his pillow. "Can we please just go to sleep? I don't want to discuss it…"

"…I need you to tell me about it, though. I need to know…. I need to know everything."

"Later."

* * *

**A/N: **I just want to say thanks for everyone's kind words and kind reviews. I'm literally just so overwhelmed at the response my story is receiving. You guys are just making me want to write more and more and more Grey's stories when I'm finished with this one. You guys are really making me feel welcomed here and I really appreciate it. Now I do have about ten general questions that I've been getting PMed about that I'd just like to clear up.

1. Everything in this story is made up, solely from my imagination. Of course some of the things I put in here are influenced and brought on by the show, but everything that seems remotely made up comes from my imagination. This story isn't based off my own real life experiences or anything like that. I'm making this all up as I go along, haha.

2. Um, yes. To all the people that have been PMing me and asking, I DO write about sex. I do tend to get a little… descriptive with sex scenes, to the point where everything is just downright explicit. I probably won't do that for this story, however. I just feel like the whole essence of the story is too deep for the very descriptive sex scenes. If you decided to check out my other stories, you will find that my sex scenes are VERY… well… detailed, lol. I don't think I'm going to make sex real central and important in this story, so don't count on a sex scene ever being more than just a few dirty words here or there.

3. I try to do a lot of research before I just decide to write a story. I like to make my stories feel as real as possible to the people reading it. With that being said, while most of the things in this story are made up, the realistic elements are very real. Both Franklin and Garfield are real schools in the real Seattle school district, with most details about the schools being made up. Also, as far as I know, whatever is being said about the Foster System and how it works is very close to being true. I did a lot of research on foster care.

4. I came up with the idea for this story, obviously from watching Grey's. I am, of course, a pretty diehard Jo Wilson/Camilla Luddington fan and I just wanted to know more about Jo's background on the show. So I'm letting my imagination run wild here. This is just a reflection on what I think… or could have possibly happened in Jo's life (with the exception of events that are obviously contradicted by the show). I got this idea from the tree scene in season nine, actually.

5. Well, I don't usually update as often as I've been updating this story. I've been updating an awful lot and that's because I just LOVE writing this story and letting you guys know how "Jo" is doing from day to day. The reason I've been updating so often is because A) It's summer, and B) I have the freedom to stay up until ungodly hours of the night writing. On the 27th of this month, I will be going back to school and the updates will become less and less, sorry.

6. Yeah, I'm still in high school. I'm only seventeen! I'm a senior this year, though.

7. I'm aware that there are tons of songs in this story. There are so many, because I tend to listen to music while I write and lots of the chapters are actually inspired by songs. If you ever want to know what song a particular chapter is inspired by, feel free to ask me. I'll tell you. With that being said, I don't own any of the songs in the story, obviously. All rights go to Price Tag by Jessie J, Tennis Court by Lorde, 22 by Taylor Swift, Human by Cristina Perri, I Love Rock 'n Roll by Joan Jett & The Black Hearts, Give Me Love by Ed Sheeran, Mercy by Kanye West, The Man by Aloe Blacc, She Looks So Perfect by 5SOS, Me and My Broken Heart by Rixton, Classic by MKTO, Radioactive by Imagine Dragons…etc. Yeah, you get the picture. I don't own the damn songs.

8. When school starts up again, I'll probably update somewhere between once or twice a week, maybe more than that.

9. I don't really read fanfiction. I write it, I live it, I breathe it. But I don't read it. If you recommend me to read something, I'll probably check it out. But I don't really read fanfiction… I just can't get into it like some people can. I have too much fun writing it.

10. Yes, I will ALWAYS write in first person point of view. I literally suck SO bad at writing from third person points of view. If I write more fanfiction for Grey's, I WILL switch points of view though. I tend to have at least three different people's points of view with a focus on one main person. I think this entire story will be written from Jo's point of view, though. & I'm from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. So if I use some language that you're not familiar with, I'm so sorry. I try to keep it proper and understandable for everyone.

So, if you have any other questions for me, feel free to ask me in a review or a PM. If I feel like I'm getting too many of the same questions, I'll do what I just did and answer them at the end of a chapter. Don't feel like you're being pushy or annoying. I get that you guys can be curious about the person behind a story… even if the person is a weird little seventeen year old, Grey's Anatomy addict from Pennsylvania. Lol. I'm a really nice person and I'll answer any questions you have, whether it be about me or about the story.

Oh, and if you don't want to call me flawlesspeasant, you can call me Rae. Nice to formally meet you guys.


	26. If You Don't Mean It

While my eyes are still closed, I hear the constant and very annoying sounds of something clicking. It's not the kind of click that sounds like a computer mouse, either. It sounds like pounding on the buttons of a video game control. I'm not sure if I'm still dreaming or if I'm awake. I start by opening just one of my eyeballs. It's so bitterly bright in here, my eye starts burning. _It's the morning… how long did you sleep? You were supposed to leave by noon. Dammit. _I prop myself up on my elbows and scan around the room. Alex is not in the bed next to me like he was when we both fell asleep. One of my red duffel bags is sitting in the corner right beside his door and the clicking noise is coming from someone sitting on the sofa in his room, playing a bloody videogame. I catch myself almost calling out his name but I realize that the person sitting on the sofa is not him. _Where the hell…_

Clutching the blankets close to my body, I sit all the way up and continue to look around. I stifle a yawn and take a deep breath. When I take a breath, I inhale the aroma of food. _My god, what time is it? _I stretch across his bed and grab my phone of the nightstand. I tap the home button, only for the screen to remain dark. It's dead. I glance back over at the person sitting on the couch. He's not paying any attention to me at all. He's way too invested in his videogame. I kind of need to use the bathroom but I don't know if I should get out of the bed or not. I feel like I should just stay here until Alex comes in here or the one on the couch decides to leave. I think that's his little brother on the couch but I don't know for sure because I've never really gotten a good look at him. _Why would he just leave me in here asleep, with the door open like this? I wouldn't feel so weird about it had I actually came over at a decent hour last night and had everyone actually known I was here. Something tells me that his mom wouldn't be okay with him bringing a girl in here without asking… _

On the other nightstand, beside the side of the bed that he slept on is his cell phone. I wonder if his is dead. Very discreetly so I don't bother the kid on the sofa, I reach over and grab it. I press on his home button and the screen lights up. It's 11:30 in the morning. _Be out of here by noon. _I sigh and flop back against the pillow again. Because I'm nosy and don't have anything else better to do, I hold his phone up so I can try to go through it. His wallpaper is a picture of the Seahawks logo and his battery is on 90%. _I wonder what his passcode is. _I slide my finger across the touchscreen and to my surprise, he doesn't have one. When his phone unlocks, his home screen pops up and it's empty with no apps on it, but the background is a picture of… me. I hold the phone closer to my face so I can get a better look. _Yeah, it's definitely me. I remember taking this picture. _It's from the summertime, definitely back in August or so. I went swimming with Shane and his cousins down at Crystal Pool and the bathrooms had really nice body mirrors, so I took a picture in one of them. I never realized how skanky the picture was until just now. I mean, it's pretty bad. My navy blue bikini top is tied around my neck really tight so of course, my boobs look like they belong on a Playboy model or a Hooters girl; the navy blue and white striped bottoms make my butt look disgusting and if it's not bad enough, I'm poking it out. The flash from my camera sort of blurred out my stomach and the only thing that makes the picture even remotely cute is the way my sunglasses were positioned on my head. I look like a cheap, baby prostitute. _Where'd he even get this picture? He doesn't even follow me on Instagram and that's the only place I posted it… I wonder what other incriminating pictures he has in here…_

I scroll over to the second part of his home screen and tap on his "Photos" app. He has 539 pictures in his camera roll, three panorama pictures, six videos and 104 Instagram pictures. I tap into his camera roll and start looking around. _Football picture, football picture, snipe of Jackson, snipe of April, picture of a pizza, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, picture of Jackson eating French fries, picture of a school study guide, picture of him in his football uniform, picture of him shirtless, picture of him shirtless AND sweaty, screenshot of something on Facebook, picture of him shirtless again, picture of him and me at the haunted house, picture of me eating at the restaurant before the haunted house that I didn't know he took, me again, me, me, me, me, me… some blonde haired chick, me… me… blondie again…boobs? Not my boobs. Should I flip out? _

"I didn't know you were up." All of a sudden, he appears in the doorway of his room looking like he's been up for hours already. "My mom went to work this morning, so I made food. Come grab something to eat in the kitchen." He walks into the room and goes straight over to the person on the sofa. "I told you to keep it down and not wake her up, didn't I?" He takes the controller off the person I now know for sure is his little brother. "You can finish after breakfast. Now hurry up and go eat before Amber eats all the bacon." The little boy gets up off the sofa and breezes past me, straight out of the room. "Sorry if he woke you… he almost had a cow when I told him he couldn't play his game until you woke up. He promised he wouldn't be loud, but I should've known better. Aaron was born loud."

"He didn't wake me." I lock his phone back and sit up in his bed. I lift my arms up to him so that he can give me a good morning hug. At first he looks at me like he doesn't know what I want, but it doesn't take him long to catch on. He wraps his arms around my torso and I wrap mine around his neck. "You're getting better with the cuddling…" He tries to pull away out of the hug once he's had enough but I keep my arms around his neck so he's pulling me with him when he pulls away. "I'm not done."

"If it makes you happy…" Instead of standing there with my arms around his neck, he slowly pushes me back against the pillows so I'm lying flat on my back and he's lying on top of me. "How'd you sleep, by the way?" He holds himself up in a push-up position so he's not putting his weight on me. My arms are still around his neck, as I haven't let him go yet. I kind of want to kiss him but I'm just scared to. I don't want what happened last night to happen again if I kiss him. "You were out for a while…" He pushes my hair away from my face and looks down at me. "You kept pulling on my shirt… did you have bad dreams?"

"No. I didn't really dream at all… I just slept." I take one of my arms from around his neck and press my hand against his cheek. What I would give to kiss him… I clear my throat and lean up towards him so our lips can meet. _You're gonna freak out. Don't even think about it. _"So um…" _Change the subject before you get all weird again. _"How long have you been stalking me on Instagram? And what do you do? Just go through all my Facebook pictures and save the ones you like?"

"What's wrong with wanting to have pictures of my girlfriend in my phone?" His hands slide down to my waist, but something inside my body is able to differentiate between good touch and bad touch and I totally don't freak out on him. Him putting his hands on my waist isn't at all sexual. It's just a sign of him showing his appreciation towards me… I think. "If you don't like me having pictures of you, I can always delete them…"

"No, it's sweet." I use my thumbs and stroke the laugh-lines in his cheeks. "But you only have my Facebook pictures. You don't have any like… personal pictures. We should take more pictures together. It's kind of sad that you have to turn to Instagram and Facebook to get pictures of me."

"Well, the Facebook pictures were from before we even got together." He puts his tongue in his cheek and chuckles. My jaw drops and my eyes widen at him, but I'm just being playful. "What? I had to check you out before I messaged you back… make sure you were hot enough for me." He winks.

"So you went through my pictures and just saved a bunch of them? Creeper." I stop stroking his face and tangle my fingers through his messy, shaggy brown loose curls. "Well what'd you think? The first time you went through my pictures, I mean."

"I thought… I thought there was no way in hell you're a freshman. I actually looked through your entire page for about an hour, just to see what you were like and just to make sure you weren't a fake page or anything like that. I thought I saw you around school a couple times but I wasn't sure. I don't really notice the freshmen." He pushes my hair out of my face again. "I decided to give you a shot because you were bold enough to make the first move, and bold girls are hot."

"…Actually, I didn't even make the first move." His hair is so soft. I love getting my fingers all tangled and messed up in it. "I was helping Shane find Cristina on Facebook, actually. He has/had a creepy little obsession with her and he wanted to know her name. So we were looking through his friend list and I said something about your profile picture being cute. And somehow he translated that into me having a crush on you and he was the one that requested you and messaged you. He did it."

"Wait, ROSS likes Cristina? But I thought him and the blonde girl were a thing? The blonde is way cuter than Cris… plus she's actually in his league."

"Yeah, it was sick, actually. He was like borderline obsessed with her until he found Leah. I don't think he's all that into her anymore. And yeah, him and Leah are cute together, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Ross is a pretty cool freshman too. Your little group isn't that bad, but the other ones are just downright annoying. You, Ross, Glasses, Shorty and Blondie are the cool freshies."

"Glasses, Shorty and Blondie have names. Stephanie, Heather and Leah."

"Yeah, well that's what we call them. We don't ever call girls by their names so don't take it personally. It just makes it easier for us to talk in code."

"Who's 'us'?"

"Football team." He adjusts himself on the palms of his hands and keeps hovering over me. For him to hold his body weight up for this long just shows me how strong he is. I don't think he'd hurt me too bad if he went ahead and laid on top of me though. "Long traveling hours to away games… we have to entertain ourselves somehow on the bus."

"Oh yeah, I forgot that bus talk and locker room talk is strictly confidential. Shane never tells me a thing that's said amongst the football players. He calls it 'breaking the code'." I put air quotes around that. "You guys can't possibly talk about anything that important, though." I take my fingers out of his hair and rest my hands on his back. He's just so muscular…

"Oh, what we talk about is pretty important. It's real cutting edge stuff."

"So tell me something about it then. Give me like… a little snippet of what you guys say. Or at least tell me my nickname. You said we all have them…"

"I can't tell you any of that." His lips curl up into a snide little smirk. "Locker room talk is confidential."

"Come on… just tell me nicknames. Just tell me a couple nicknames." I trace my hands all along his back muscles and give him my "puppy-dog-eyes." He keeps smirking. "You don't even have to tell me whose nickname is what. Just tell them to me and I'll guess… okay?"

"…Alright." He leans his face down and kisses me on my forehead. "There's… Shorty, Glasses and Blondie. Then we have Eeyore, IBG, Snoopy, Lefty, Stop and Princess. There's more, but those are the only ones I think you know. Everyone else you don't really know."

"...Shorty is obviously Heather, Glasses is Steph and Blondie is Leah. Um… 'Stop' is probably April or something, right? Cause she's red like a stop sign, right?"

"…How the hell did you know that?"

"I'm pretty smart if you give me the chance." I giggle. "Um… is 'Eeyore' Cristina? 'Princess' is Meredith, 'Snoopy' is…I don't know who 'Snoopy' is. I'm not sure who 'Lefty' is either. And what the hell is an IBG?"

He starts laughing at me. "…Take this to your grave, okay?" I nod fast, excitedly. "'Eeyore' is Mer, because she's so depressed all the damn time, 'IBG' is Lexie, it stands for 'Itty Bitty Grey', Cristina's 'Snoopy' because she's in everyone's business all the time, 'Stop' is Ape because she's a ginger, Lefty is Lucy… Lucy Fields? The blonde sophomore? Yeah, her. And Princess is you. You're Princess Jo."

"PRINCESS?! Why PRINCESS?!" _They could've given me something better than that. Hairball is more creative than that. _"And you just let them call me that?"

"Ross gave us the idea. We didn't have to give you one until we started dating, and Ross said that you should be 'Princess.' The more I think about it, the more I agree with it. You are kind of a Princess. The guys think you act like one, and they're always busting my balls about treating you like one."

"I'm not a princess. And I don't act like a princess… do I?"

"You kind of acted like a princess when you went to Garfield." He kisses my forehead again. "You were all prim and proper at lunch time. You ate French fries with a fork and wiped your face with a napkin. You crossed your legs and bit into tater tots instead of shoving them into your mouth whole. You're a princess."

"I'm not." I put my hands against his chest and push him softly up off me. "And I'm surprised that Shane's the one that told you to call me that, given the fact that he's always telling me how disgusting I am." I keep my hands against his chest and push him all the way down so that we've swapped positions and I'm on top of him this time. "I burp, I cuss like a sailor when I'm pissed off, I'd rather not wear makeup at all and I'm most comfortable when I'm in a pair of sweatpants. I'm not a princess." _You can kiss him… just don't go all batshit crazy when you do. _"I'm not going to act like a pig around my boyfriend though." I lean down and press my lips against his, but I leave out the tongue part of the kissing. I'm not ready for that yet.

"I'm still gonna buy you a tiara." He holds my face to his and kisses me again. "You're getting better with the blushing."

"…I just don't have anything to be shy about anymore." I sigh and sit up while I'm straddling him. I'm kind of reminding myself of when I straddled…and kissed Jason. _Whatever. It's different this time because it's Alex and not Jason. _"I think I'm a totally different person than I was a couple weeks ago… I don't have anything to blush about."

"What do you mean by that, babe?" He puts his hands on my lower back and starts lovingly caressing me. _He called you babe. Dear god, he called you BABE. Act natural. ACT NATURAL. _

I fight off the urge to smile and lean down to kiss him again. "I mean that…" I push my lips against his then pull away. "I've already done everything. I've been through hell and back… I've seen it all, done it all…. What's the sense in being shy about things I've already done and seen?"

"…I know you don't want to talk about it. And you don't have to talk about it." He slides his hands up the back of my shirt and keeps them down towards the lower parts of my back. "But it's been bothering me since last night…" It's almost like he's massaging my hips instead of just rubbing them. "He um… he didn't…" He grips my hips really tight and pushes me back again so that we're back in the position we started off in, but he's between my legs this time. "He didn't have you first, did he?" Instead of my lips, he kisses me on my cheek. "You know what I mean…"

"I swear I already told you that I'm not a virgin and I haven't been one since I was four-freaking-teen. You don't listen to me when I talk. It's like I'm talking to myself half of the time." I put my hands back into his hair and roll my eyes. "I wasn't a virgin. Don't worry about that. I didn't lie to you about losing it just to make myself seem… cooler. I really did lose it."

"I was just making sure. That would've been a real cruddy way of losing it… I'm just saying." He sighs. "I was just making sure that it wasn't your first time. You deserve to at least not remember your first time being like that. It should've been… special. Not like that."

"Well now you're just talking out of your ass, because there's nothing special about screwing a guy for twenty minutes when you're fourteen years old."

"What are you talking about?"

_You never did tell him about how you lost yours. You brushed the subject off so quickly when we were talking about it at the restaurant. Might as well have some fun with it. _"You wanna know about my first time?" He nods. _This is gonna be so good. _"My first time… it was with this other fourteen year old boy… and he was so sweet. He bought me flowers and gave me kisses and he took me out mini golfing. And his parents were away for the night so we had the house to ourselves… and we made love… right in the hot tub in his backyard." His eyes are narrowing. _He's buying it. Amp it up just a little. Fuck with him a little more. _"It was so special." I purse my lips together and strain my eyes so I can get some tears to come out. "He was so gentle. It wasn't rough… it was special. Then he wanted it again so we went to his bedroom… and we did it again… and it was so amazing. He had cancer… so it was his dying wish to sleep with me… because he loved me ever since we were eleven. He even lit candles in the bedroom… he died a week later." I wipe away a couple of fake tears. "Excuse me…" I made it sound really fucking believable.

"…Oh." His face just reads… sorrow. "I'm sorry, I didn't know. I would've never…. I wouldn't have pushed you to talk about it if I knew… I'm sorry…"

I wipe away every last tear and just bust out in laughter. "Look at your face! You totally just bought that!" I bury my face in his chest and laugh hard and genuinely, like I haven't done in a really, really long time. "Y…Your face!"

"…You were bullshitting?"

"I was totally fucking with you." I push him off me again and hold my stomach while I laugh. "I WISH I lost my virginity in a hot tub." I look up at the ceiling and just keep laughing. "No, seriously, I lost my virginity to a sixteen year old behind a pool shed. So much for a romantic evening in a hot tub." I keep wiping my face. "I was just messing with you. You're so gullible."

"…But you were crying…"

"I can turn it on and off as I please. I used to use it against everyone when I was a baby." I sniff and wipe my eyes. "I did it to Shane once, in the middle of the Olive Garden. He was so freaked out that he walked away and just left me there. I got the last piece of cake anyway, so it totally worked."

"Don't do that to me, Jo. You really had me feeling bad for a second." He puts his hands over his face and sighs.

"…Alex… I'm sorry, okay? It was just a joke. I was joking."

"WELL IT'S NOT FUNNY!"

"…Okay. I'm sorry… I won't do it again…" I stick my index finger in my mouth and start chewing on the nail. _Note to self, the tears don't amuse everybody. He's really pissed at me. _

"…Now who got who?!" He busts out into laughter too.

"YOU JERK!" I start laughing again. _Hey, that was good… that was really good. _"I was so scared! I thought you were about to swing back and pop me in my mouth or something! You got so mad!" I playfully push him against his back. When I go to push him again, he moves and makes me fall forward against his bed. "You're a douche."

"And you're a loser." He stands up and bends back down to kiss me. "Alright, let's so see if Aaron and Amber left us any breakfast."

* * *

"Do you like… um… um… Fwozen?" I have to listen really closely to decipher through her cute little lisp. I can tell that she's genuinely trying to pronounce everything correctly but her tongue keeps getting caught up in the empty spaces where her entire row of front teeth used to be. She's missing all of her front teeth, except for the molars towards the back. "I like Fwozen a lot but I don't really like Bwave." When she shakes her head, her dirty blonde pig tails bounce and flail around. She's the cutest thing I've ever seen. "I like Qween Elsa better than…than Merwida."

"Yeah, I like Frozen too." I pick up a blue crayon and color in the clouds on my coloring sheet. I've seen that Frozen movie like once, and that was with Shane's little brothers. I don't really remember much about it, so I improvise with the things that I do remember. "The snowman's my favorite character. I think he's cute." I put the blue crayon down and pick up a green one. I suck at all things art-related, including coloring inside the lines. I have really, really steady hands but I just don't have the concentration to color something that I'm not really interested in coloring in the first place. But she asked me specifically if I would color with her and she's too cute to say no to.

"Which one? You like Owhlaf or Mawshmellow? She picks up a purple crayon and colors in a flower. _What's the damn difference between the snowmen? Just pick one and hope it's the one that she likes too. _"I was Qween Elsa for Halloween." Before she pesters me too much about the snowman question, she moves on which I'm grateful for. I think she has some type of ADHD or ADD because her little mind moves so quickly. "Awelex… Awelex…" She starts stuttering. _OW-LICKS is Alex, I think. Just keep up with her Jo. _"Awelex dwessed up as Owhlaf with me. He… he… he careweed me home cause I was tired. We got best cawstume at school."

Okay, so all I got out of that was Alex dressed up as Olaf? He dressed up as Olaf and they got best costume at school? But I thought he said he hasn't dressed up for Halloween in forever. "Oh, really?" I stop coloring and look up at Alex, who's standing at the kitchen sink being all domesticated and washing the dishes. I raise my voice about a pitch higher so that he can hear me. "Alex dressed up as Olaf, huh?! Well that was nice of him! Is he always nice to you?!"

"Yeah." She nods and picks up an orange crayon. "Mommy said…mommy said he could miss school to dwess up with me and come to school with me and he did! It was so fun!" For some reason, I can't stop looking at him now. He's all buff and bulky but who knew deep down inside him, he'd put on a snowman costume for his little sister? And he wore it in public. "Awelex is so so so so SO nice. One time… one time… one time he played doggy with me and he got to be the dog. He barked and evwything!"

_Oh my god, no WAY. He's a big softie! No freaking way! _"Well it's good that he spends a lot of time with you. He's really busy with school, isn't he?" I don't know what else to talk to a little kid about, so I'm just gonna milk her for information about Alex. "Does he spend a lot of time with you?"

"Mhm." She nods her head. "He has girlfwends." She whispers that to me and leans across the table to whisper some more. "He has girlfwends that he kisses! Some of them are pwetty but the one is UG-LY."

"Is she ugly?" I push my coloring sheet to the side. "What does she look like?"

"She has yellow hair… gween eyes and a big mowth." She leans across the table yet again and whispers to me. "He dumped her a long time ago and she cwied for forever! Shh… Awelex… He… he had a baby wif her!"

"…WHAT?" I swivel around in my chair with the quickness. "ALEX!" _WOAH. OKAY, WOAH. WHAT?! DID SHE JUST… HUH? HE HAS A… HE HAS A WHAT?! _

"Go brush your teeth, Amber." He pulls her chair out and helps her out of it when he's done washing the dishes. "She's… she's just talking stupid." He wipes his hands on a dishtowel and sits down across from me. "She's referring to this baby doll. My mom bought her a baby doll last Christmas with blonde hair and brown eyes. She said it was me and Lucy's baby because Lucy had yellow hair too. She's a kid, don't listen to what she says."

"…Who's Lucy?" _This is the second time today that her name has been mentioned, and lest I forget about the blonde girl in his camera roll. I don't know shit about a Lucy. _"Is she the blonde girl in your phone?" I'm trying to act as calmly as possible. I'm not that psycho girlfriend that freaks out at the most minor provocations. I'm just going to be totally calm about it. Since I feel myself starting to get a little bit angry, I slide my coloring sheet back over in front of me and pick up a black crayon to distract myself. "You have like… ten pictures of her in your phone or something?"

"Me and her were a thing last year… before me and you became a thing." He picks up a crayon and doodles my name in an empty spot on my coloring sheet. He even draws a heart next to it. "I suck at deleting my pictures, so I guess I just never deleted her pictures." He shrugs.

"…When'd you break up with her?" I scribble my full name in an empty space too. _J-0-S-E-P-H-I-N-E. _

"She broke up with me at the beginning of this year, actually." He grabs a different color crayon and moves over to another empty spot. He writes down A-L-E-X-A-N-D-E-R. "Said she thought we should see new people because my eyes wander to other girls too much."

"…You guys were together pretty long." I keep scribbling various forms of "Jo" on the paper. _Keep your cool. Don't flip. Don't flip. _"So it's safe to assume that those were her boobs in your phone then, right?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and write my name in cursive. "I mean, they're not mine… so I guess they're hers then…"

"Oh… yeah, probably." He shrugs and picks up a pink crayon. In the last empty margin on the paper, he writes A-L-E-X with a really lopsided heart, the J-O underneath of it. Oh he's good. He's really good at kissing ass. "Just never deleted it, I guess… my fault." He colors in the heart. "What's your full name?"

_Nice conversation switch. Real nice. I'm not an imbecile though. _"Josephine Leanne McKenna Wilson." I put my crayon down and just look at him. "So… Alexander MICHAEL… when'd you plan on telling me… I don't know… that maybe… you dated Lucy for a year?"

"It wasn't a year and she wasn't important. She slipped my mind…" He flips the paper over to a clean side and starts writing out my full name. He fucked up my name but it's excusable. He spelled "Josephine" right, but he spelled "Leanne" with no E and McKenna with a second A. So to him, I'm Josephine Leann Mackenna… he's cute, but not cute enough. "Why do you have two middle names?"

"One's my confirmation name. I'm catholic." I mumble through clenched teeth. "So… you dated this girl for a year, never deleted her pictures from your phone… you have a picture of her BOOBS in your phone… but it slipped your mind to tell me?" I bawl my hands up into fists. "Don't make me punch you in your head, Alex."

"What?" He stops drawing and looks up at me. "I wasn't hiding anything, Jo. If I had something to hide from you, I wouldn't have left my phone… unattended… in the same room as you… with NO lock on it. I obviously didn't remember that the pictures were in there, otherwise I would've deleted them or tried to hide them from you. The only pictures I really even look at in my phone are the ones of you… all the others I don't care about. Plus, the boobs were in a bra. It's not like she's full out naked…"

"You still have another girl's boobs in your phone, Alex. Are you missing that point? I went through your phone and all I saw was boobs. Boobs that don't belong to me. Those aren't my boobs. I would know if they were. Hell, I would've been the one to send them to you, but I didn't. So they're obviously not my boobs. So what am I supposed to think?"

"I know how it looked. And I know how it sounds. You had to find out about Lucy from my little sister and I'm sorry about that. But I just really didn't think to mention her to you because she's not important to me. I'm all about you now… why would I even want to think about Lucy?"

I roll my eyes. "Lucy. Sounds like a stripper name." I unbawl my hands up from the fists and try to relax a little bit. "So delete the pictures. Delete them right now if it's really not that big of a deal, and she really slipped your mind, let's delete them together. Gimme your phone." I hold my hand out for it. He reaches in his pocket and hands it to me. I unlock his phone and go straight to his pictures. I scroll all the way to the top of all 539 of them. "Holy shit, Alex! Damn!" _Boobs, boobs, boobs, boobs, boobs, NAKED boobs, more naked boobs, is that somebody's ASS?! _"Are you serious?! I should punch you in your fucking neck right now. You seriously never deleted any of these?! Are these all hers?!" He guiltily nods. "…Did you ever send her pictures?" I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that, but I already asked and he BETTER answer me. "Hello?! Earth to Asshole! Did you ever send her pictures?!"

"What kind of pictures?" He starts deleting them for me.

"Don't act fucking stupid. Please don't act stupid. I'll kick your ass right out of this chair if you act stupid." I bite on my knuckle. I gotta chill out. I gotta chill. "Did you send her pictures or not?"

"Like once or twice, that's it… and she deleted them." He's just going through and selecting all of them. "Look, we're even now. You messed up and I messed up. You kissed that dude and I forgot to delete some pictures. We're even."

"It's not a fucking contest. We're not competing in this. And I'm sorry, but I don't give a shit what I did. I'm not… I'm not playing this shit. If I have to fight with some girl over my man, she can have him. You're MY boyfriend. I shouldn't have to deal with seeing another girl's ASS in your phone, Alex. You don't forget to delete over 100 naked pictures from your phone, you just didn't WANT to delete them. I was gonna let it go when I saw just a pair of tits… but her ASS too?"

"I'm just saying. I forgave you for what you did and you can forgive me too. I don't want to keep bringing that bastard up, because I know what he did to you and I still feel shitty about that, but let's not forget that you DID kiss him, Jo. And you admitted that. I forga—"

"SHUT UP." I put my hand up in his face. "Fuck that, Alex. I didn't hold a gun to your head and make you forgive me. You could've easily told me to go fuck myself or whatever. I didn't make you forgive me. And I'm not even saying that I'm not gonna forgive you. I just want to know WHY you didn't delete this girl's ass out of your phone? Her BARE ass, too? And her BOOBS. I wouldn't even… I wouldn't give a damn if they were dirty pictures you found online, because let's be real… all boys look at dirty pictures. But the fact that she's your EX and her ass is in your pictures? And then you didn't even think to tell me? And don't give me that 'I don't look in my pictures' excuse because that's BULL and you know it. You have pictures of me in there and I know damn well you see that girl's ASS in that phone. You just didn't want to delete them."

"Well I'm obviously not gonna get pictures from you…" He keeps on selecting pictures and cleaning out his camera roll. "You won't even let me see your bare back without freaking out right now."

"You don't fuckin' ask!" _Not that I'd send him nudes anyway, because I DON'T DO THAT, but still. He never even asked! He didn't give me a chance. _"You just assume that I'm gonna say no? You have a picture of me in my bathing suit, isn't that enough?"

"Alright, I'm sorry. I'm sorry and the pictures are all gone… can we move on?"

"Delete her number too. Do it right now, while I'm standing here. Delete her number. I don't want you talking to her." I fold my hands and keep watching him. "Matter of fact, let me see your messages. How long has it been since you talked to that nasty bitch?"

"You don't have to call her nasty…" He taps onto his messages and hands me his phone again.

"She's sending you naked pictures and putting her FACE in them… the bitch is nasty." I start scrolling through his messages with her. _"I miss you baby :(" She sent that to him yesterday. He didn't reply back but it was YESTERDAY. _ "Don't let me see her on the streets or anything. No words, I'm punching her in her mouth. I swear to god I'm punching her in her mouth. What the fuck does she mean, she misses you? Hand me my phone, please. I'm gonna text her. Let ME text her."

"Will you look at yourself, Jo?!" He hands me my phone though. "…You're going crazy over her telling me that she misses me… now imagine how you'd feel if you found out that I fucked the girl, just recently. You'd want to kill her, wouldn't you?"

"…There isn't a 'want' about it. I wouldn't 'want' to kill her… I WOULD kill her, period."

"…And you have the nerve to tell me to calm down when it comes to Jason?"

"That's different."

"No, it's not different. It's the same thing… a little stronger for me, though. I'll kill someone over you, just like you're ready to kill Lucy over me. So since you talked me out of stomping Jason's ass into the pavement, I'm gonna talk you out of cussing out Lucy. Put the phone down…" He tries to take my phone out of my hand but I pull it away. _See, the difference between me and him is that I'm NOT fucking playing with this bitch. I really will punch her lights out for even texting his phone. _"Okay, fine. You text Lucy… you cuss her out. Go 'head. But if you cuss her out, I'm taking a trip across town to the Myers'. Your choice."

"…I'm not even gonna be mean to her. I'm just gonna ask her real simply, why the fuck are you texting my boyfriend's phone on some 'I miss you' bullshit? I'll be nice about it."

"Okay, and I'll just real calmly and nicely ask Jason why he did what he did to my girlfriend?"

"You can say it, I don't give a shit." _I'm so fired up right now that I don't give a shit about anything. I have picked up on the fact that Alex won't say the actual word, though. He won't say that Jason raped me. _"Just know that I'm gonna be nice to her, but if she gets smart I'm knocking her ass out. I'm not playing. I'm sick of girls writing on your Facebook wall, commenting on your pictures, texting your fucking phone talking all reckless like I'm not your girlfriend. I'm sick of that shit. ESPECIALLY WITH HER. You guys dated for a YEAR."

"Okay, Josephine. Go 'head. Text Lucy. I'm going to Jason's."

"No, ALEXANDER. What part of I'M TIRED OF THESE BITCHES don't you understand?! Don't 'Josephine' me."

"Okay, but JOSEPHINE, how do you think I feel?! I got boys in my ear all day every day talking about my girlfriend's ass, my girlfriend's boobs, talking about what they want to do to my girlfriend. And just last night, you dumped that Jason shit on me?! HOW do you think I feel, JOSEPHINE?!"

"I'm not even gonna sit here and argue with you. Give me Lucy's number." At this point, I'm just smiling. I can't believe the whole point of this argument is over who would beat whose ass more over each other. It's so weird to be arguing about this. "Give me the bitch's number."

"Okay. Give me the Myers' address."

"No…. GIVE ME LUCY'S NUMBER."

"No… GIVE ME JASON'S ADDRESS."

"Alex, I'm dead ass serious. Don't make me punch you in your neck. You can get punched in this kitchen."

He just starts laughing at me. "Come here." And just like that, he kisses me dead on my lips. "You gotta calm down. It's not that serious. I don't want Lucy…. I don't want anybody but you. You know that." He keeps kissing me, sloppier and sloppier each time. "I'm sorry for not deleting the pictures… okay? And I'll delete Lucy's number and I'll never talk to her again. If that's what you want, you got it."

"That's what I want." I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him again. "I don't want you to talk to her."

"Alright. You got it." When he kisses me this time, he slowly eases his tongue in my mouth. Nervously, I allow it. If I don't think about freaking out, I won't freak out. I think he's being cautious about making me freak out, because he tries to pull out of the kiss. I'm not ready to stop kissing him yet, though.

"Mmm mmm." I shake my head, hold his head still and find myself biting on his bottom lip. "Don't stop yet…" I take his tongue back in my mouth again. _Oh god, I really needed this. I really needed to kiss him… _The only reason I pull away is to breathe, then I go right back to kissing him. Unconsciously, I let a moan slip out into his mouth. I pull back to breathe again. "I love you…" _DID YOU JUST… _I pull away for good, clamping my hands over my mouth. "…I… I um… I don't really know… yeah…" I take my hands off him and take a step back. "…My bad…"

"Shut up…" He pulls me back into his arms and resumes kissing me. "I love you too… don't apologize for it." I push his head back away from me so I can say something.

"Don't say it… if you don't mean it." We're nose to nose with each other and I'm standing on my tiptoes so I can be face-to-face with him. "Please don't say it… if you don't mean it."

"I mean it, I know I do." He squeezes me tight. "I love you in that… I'm gonna kill someone over you, I get sick when I think about somebody touching you, my arms ache when you're not in them, love you enough to…freaking cuddle with you, kind of way. I love you like that."

I smile at that. "And I love you in that… stay up all night, listen to a love song and think about you, get butterflies in my stomach when I think about you, pretend that your breath doesn't taste like bacon… kind of way."

"You're a loser."

"And you're a douche."


	27. Lies

**Sun, Nov 2, 2013**

**10:02 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Me: **hey are you awake?

**10:04 p.m.**

**Me: **shane i know you're awake. you don't ever fall asleep before 12, even on school nights. answer me.

**10:07 p.m.**

**Me: **shane?

**10:10 p.m.**

**Shane: **Jo? You got your phone back?

**Shane: **Where are you?

**10:11 p.m.**

**Me: **i need you to do me a favor. come downstairs to your back door.

**Shane: **Are you outside?

**Me: **just open the freaking door.

**Shane: **k.

I shove my phone into one of the front pockets of my sweatpants and look around outside. _You're so stupid. You can't just keep showing up at people's doorsteps at all hours of the night. You're an asshole. You need to come up with a freaking plan. What are you going to do for the rest of your life? You have no plans, you're just winging everything. _I shove my hands into my pants pockets and stare at my feet. Funny how I have ten million things to worry about right now, but the only thing that's really heavy on my mind is how chipped the red polish on my toenails is. I don't remember the last time I polished my toenails, but if I'm going to wear flip flops I should probably keep up with them better. _It's the fall. It's too cold for flip flops anyway. _I seriously have to start thinking about what I'm going to do. I'm not going back to the Myers' and that's a fact. But I can't just keep taking things from day to day like this, can I? Last night, it was Alex's house. Tonight it's Shane's house. What's it gonna be tomorrow night? I can't keep bouncing from place to place to place, looking for somewhere to bathe, sleep and possibly eat.

Suddenly, the kitchen light from inside the house flickers on and the sliding glass backdoor to Shane's house opens up. Even though Shane doesn't fall asleep at this hour normally, I can definitely tell that he was lying down. He's shirtless, donning a pair of boxer shorts and slippers and his eyes are squinting from the harshness of the sudden light. "J?" He rubs his eyes and clears his throat, seemingly to make sure if it's really me. "J, what are you doing here?!" He flings the glass door all the way open and steps out onto the porch with me. While my hands are still in my pockets, he wraps his arms around me and squeezes. _Ouch. _"What are you doing here? I wasn't really expecting you to actually BE here! Why aren't you at your foster house?"

"I had to get outta there. I stayed at Alex's last night… I just had to go." I take my hands out of my pockets and hug him back. _It feels so good to hug him. I didn't know you missed Shane this much. …Did you even know that you missed him this much? _I move my hair out of my face, but make sure that I don't move my hair too far out of the way. I have it up in a ponytail but my bangs are covering the bruises on my face to avoid having to answer questions. "I'm not going back there, Shane. I can't go back there. I'm probably already in so much legal trouble but I don't even care. I'm not going back there."

"Well DUH you're in legal trouble." He stops hugging me and pushes me back by my shoulders so we can look at each other while we're talking. "And you seriously went to Alex instead of me?! I should've been the first one… you're in so much trouble." He shakes his head at me. "Your foster mom already came here looking for you and everything. They're gonna call the cops, J. You gotta go back! Oh my goodness…" His grip around my shoulders tightens and he literally forces me to look him in his eyes. "DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW WORRIED ABOUT YOU WE WERE?!" He starts shaking me back and forth. "That woman came here and she told us that she went to wake you up this morning and you were GONE! My… my MOM started CRYING! My mom…" He grabs my wrists, which of course makes me pull away. "No, let's GO, Jo! You had people worried SICK about you!"

"Let GO of me!" I yank my left wrist especially out of his hand and shake it as it's starting to burn. "I don't care who was worried, I'm not going back there." I secretively look down at my wrist to see if he broke anything open. No, nothing's bleeding. "If you were so worried about me, why didn't you just text me? Weirdo."

"How was I supposed to know that I was able to?!" He grabs both my arms again and pulls me inside the house. "Up until now, I was stuck thinking you were grounded, with no phone! Hell, I thought about texting you but I didn't want your kidnapper to know you were being contacted! JO, WE WERE SERIOUSLY WORRIED ABOUT YOU!" I snatch my arms out of his hands again and look away. "NO, JO YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE OFF LIKE THAT WITHOUT TELLING PEOPLE!" He grabs my arm and a spot on my waist, which honestly just dosen't sit right with me.

"I SAID GET OFF!" I put my hands against Shane's chest and push him into the counter. Shane never just lets me wrestle him off without a fight, so it doesn't surprise me when he puts his own hands against MY chest and pushes me away from him too. I know he's just fighting with me like we always fight with each other, but the only thing that's on my mind is how his HANDS just touched my BOOBS. "DON'T TOUCH ME!" I push my hand against his face but he still has his hands on my chest and he's really attempting to fight with me. _You've been grabbed like this before… you've been touched like this… _"GET…AWAY FROM ME!"

"J, STOP IT!" He grabs my wrists and muscles me into the refrigerator. "What is WRONG with you?! WHY ARE YOU BEING SO WEIRD?!" He's holding my hands over my head, pinning me to the fridge. I don't like this…I'm not comfortable with this… For some reason, I don't even see Shane. I see him, dead in my face, holding my hands against the wall and trying to force my clothes off my body. I'm gonna puke. _You don't want this… you don't want this, and you know what happened the last time someone had you like this. _My mouth unconsciously unhinges and drops open, and when I think it's opening so I can throw up, the most… chilling, hair-raising, ear-ringing, blood-curdling…scream comes out of my mouth.

"**LEMME GO, PLEASE GET OFF ME!**" I feel his hands loosen up and as if he was the only thing keeping me on my feet, I fall down in a heap of clothes, hair and skin on the floor. I can't stop screaming, either. My throat is burning but I can't stop screaming. "**LEMME GO, LEMME GO, LEMME GO, LEMME GO, LEMME GO! STOPPIT!**"From the corner of my eye, I see a pair of pink slippers standing in the doorway. The pink slippers turn into feet… and I feel my chest just…tighten. _In the time it'll take you to get up, he'll be lying on top of you already. Why even get up? _I curl my legs into my chest and just pray that somebody hears me enough to come save me. "**LEAVE ME ALONE, LEAVE ME ALONE!**" Through the sound of my heart beating in my ears, I can kind of hear some talking but not much.

"I didn't do anything to her! She just…"

Somebody wraps their hands around my waist and pulls on my body. "**NO! NO!**" I grab onto one of the barstools that are sitting at the island and try so hard to pull myself away. _Shane's just standing there while he's grabbing me! Why is he standing there?! Why won't he help me?! Doesn't he see what he's trying to do to me?! _"**HELP ME! HELP ME!**" I can't even really see straight at this point. My vision is so blurry and cloudy from the tears that are in my eyes. The hands that are around my waist tighten and start pulling me towards the body that's attached to the hands. I'm going to throw up. I feel like I'm in a horror movie, the killer is grabbing onto me and my only salvation is just watching me while I freak out and die. I kick out one of my legs and my sweatpants slide down a little bit around my waist. _Just get away! _"**OH GOD…**"

"You obviously did something to her, Shane! Go… go… go upstairs get my phone!" The person that has their hands around my waist moves up and gets a better grip around my chest. "Jo? Honey…. Honey, it's okay." The hands move from my chest up to my head and my face is being stuffed into someone's chest. _You did it again. God, stop doing this. You've gotta stop this. _"It's okay… it's okay. Calm down, baby… calm down." When I finally take a deep breath and calm down, I realize that it's actually Miss Kelly that's holding me. She's cradling my face in her chest and rocking me back and forth like I'm a baby. I'm just as tall as, if not taller, than she is but I feel so small. I feel juvenile and just like a little girl that just watched too much of a scary movie. "You're okay, sweetie… you're okay…" She brushes my hair out of my face and strokes my cheek. "…Oh dear god…" She whispers.

My breathing is returning back to normal, but I still haven't stopped crying yet. Just like I wanted her that night, I want my mom again. My actual mom, though. No substitute mothers. She's the closest thing to a mom I've got, though. And damn, it feels good to have a mother holding me. Have you ever been able to just…tell the difference? The difference between a mother's touch and just some random stranger's touch, I mean. I can tell the difference. It feels good while one of her hands strokes my back while the other one pets my now-sweaty hair back. Shane appears back in the doorway of the kitchen with a cell phone in tow. "How many times have I told you two not to rough-house? I kept telling you that one day, one of you are going to get seriously hurt." She reaches out with her hand and smacks Shane hard on his leg before she grabs her phone off him. "And what did I tell you about hitting her in her face, Shane?!"

"Ma, I didn't hit her! I never touched—"

"So now you're gonna tell me that she blacked her own eye and busted her own lip, boy?" _He really didn't do it. I forgot all about my face. In the midst of freaking out and all… my hair must've come undone and exposed it. I thought I had it hidden pretty well. _I go to open my mouth and tell her that Shane wasn't the one that bruised my face, but I catch myself. _You're not telling anyone else about Jason. You're not. All it's going to do is get out, and eventually Paula's gonna find out about it and he's not gonna do anything but call you a liar. Plus, it's not like you're proud of it… Don't tell anyone else about him. _"Go find me the number that she gave to me… I'm gonna call her and let her know that she's okay."

"The number that who gave you? The one that her foster mom gave you?" Shane asks her to elaborate and I'm glad he did. Miss Kelly nods her head, keeps pushing my hair back and rocking with me. _She's gonna call Paula? Holy god, no. _"Here, gimme the phone. I'll call 'er." Shane takes the cell phone back out of his mother's hand.

"No…." I pull myself out of Miss Kelly's arms and try to steady myself on my feet, even though I'm still too weak from crying to even hold my own weight. If they call the Myers', I'm leaving. I can't stay here and I can't go back. I'd rather die than go back. "Please, no…. please…. please…." I backpedal to the door and try to get my body to stop shaking. "Just lemme stay… lemme stay…" I feel around until my hand finally touches the doorknob. "I can't go back…"

Shane corners in on me. I've never been able to hide my emotions from him, as long as I've known him. It's like Shane and I are both on the same brain wavelengths. He knows exactly what I'm thinking and feeling, before I even think or feel it. I know what he's thinking and feeling, too. And the look on his face tells me that he knows that I'm serious when I say that I CAN'T GO BACK. "They hit you… didn't they?" His voice cracks like it did that day he found out his dad died and he was trying not to cry in front of his brothers. "See mom, I told you. I… I told you she was gonna go to bad people. I told you we should've just kept her…"

_Come to think of it, I'm way too ashamed to even mention it again. It's bad enough I already have to live with knowing that he did what he did, but I really don't want to keep harping on what I let happen to me. I'm an idiot, I provoked him to do it and that's the end of it. I'm too ashamed of myself for letting that happen to tell anyone else. _"…I just can't go back. Please don't send me back…"

I've been around Shane's mom enough to know when she's mad. She puts her hands on her hips and her neck sticks way out when she's mad. And guess what's happening right now? Her hands are on her hips and her neck is sticking out. "That woman was over there beating on you? And she took your phone away so you couldn't tell anyone, didn't she?" _Well, it didn't exactly happen like that but if it keeps you from sending me back to them, then yeah. That happened. Wait, don't lie on Paula. She didn't do anything to you… _I swallow my pride and shake my head. "So they weren't over there beating on you?" I shake my head again."Well I still have to call them and let them know that you're okay. I have to let them know that you're here before they go ahead and report you as missing." _I knew it was a mistake coming here. I knew it. I knew it was going to be bad if I came here… _"I'll tell them to let you stay here for the night… um… why don't you go 'head upstairs and get cleaned up for bed? "

_I don't need to stay here for the NIGHT. I need to stay here forEVER. I can't go back there, don't you get it? If I go back there… what's the use? Seriously, what's even the point in fighting it? You got away for a night… you might as well just go back. Get over it and go back. _For the millionth time this week, I realize that I'm in a predicament that I'm not gonna get out of, so I might as well just accept it. I take one step and start walking towards the steps so I can go upstairs to Shane's room, at least. I don't even think it would make a difference at this point, if I told the whole world what I let Jason do to me. I'm not worth much of a fight from anybody anymore. I might as well just stick with Alex being the only person that knows.

"Wait Jo, honey…" Just as I get out of the kitchen, Miss Kelly calls me back inside. Without even a word, I step back inside to see what she wants. "That's a really nasty bruise on your back… let me see that." She motions with her hand for me to come here. I just slouch my shoulders and walk over to her. _How'd she even see my back? _She uses her two fingers and pushes on a spot on my lower back, the only spot that's exposed by my a-little-bit-too-small shirt. "Does that hurt?" She pushes on it a little harder. I shake my head at her and it really doesn't hurt that bad. "How'd you get this… if you said that she wasn't beating on you?"

I shrug my shoulders. "I slept on the floor a lot… probably from the floor or something." The lie just fluently rolls off my tongue. I know exactly how I got that bruise and I can't figure out for the life of me, how Alex went all night last night and all day today not noticing this bruise but Shane's mom noticed it just like that. Was she like… examining me or something? Does she think I'm lying to her about Paula hitting me? "I just want to go lie down…" I'm really just trying to prepare myself for going back to the Myers house. I'd rather die than go back and that's the honest truth.

"I thought you had a bed over there. Shane told me you told him you had a bed, your own room, your own TV…" Purely out of being nosy, she lifts my shirt up just a little bit. "How far down does this go, sweetie?" She puts my shirt down and starts to tug on my sweatpants.

"It doesn't!" I slip myself away from her. "It's just right there… it doesn't go down any further."

"Jo, if that woman was hurting you over there… I need you to tell me. Because there's no way in hell I'm gonna let them come take you back if it's not safe for you over there. If you have something to tell me… now would be the time to tell me. Did that woman put her hands on you?"

"No." Maybe I should… Maybe I should. _No, don't. _"Nobody hit me. I…." _Make something believable up. _"I got in a fight with a girl on my first day of school over there. I got the bruise from the fight. Same with my face and stuff… nobody in the Myers' house hit me. I got in a fight." _And why don't you want to go back? Don't forget that part. _"…I go back to school after my five-day suspension for fighting tomorrow… and I don't want to. That's why I don't want to go back."

"…Are you sure? Is that… is that why I heard you screaming all the way upstairs? Is that why it took me ten minutes to get you to stop screaming?" I purse my lips together and look down at the ground. "You can tell me things, honey. I know things have been different these last few weeks for you, but you know that me and the boys still love you. And you can still tell me anything. That hasn't changed."

_I can tell you anything, huh? Can I tell you about how my foster brother raped me? Twice? Can I talk to you about how I don't even think it was really rape? Can I tell you how I hated every single second of it, but I deserved it? Will you judge me if I tell you that I didn't fight him much on it? I can tell you anything? I can't even tell Mrs. Who about this stuff. You're not better than her. I didn't even tell Alex about it. He just…figured it out and I didn't lie to him. But the difference is that I'm too ashamed to tell the woman that has been my MOTHER for the last twelve years that I let myself get RAPED. _"I'm just tired out, okay?" And the lies continue to roll off my tongue.

* * *

"Wings. Big wings…" He pushes his back against mine and tosses me a kernel of popcorn. I catch it in my mouth and chew it. "Three left." _If I had died and gone to heaven, I'm pretty sure this is what it'd be like. It's like we're little kids again, without a care in the world. Grammy's not dead, his dad isn't dead, I wasn't raped and his family isn't poverty-stricken. We're little again, playing popcorn-guesses and shutting out the entire world. _I think everybody should have a Shane. Everybody should have someone that understands that there's something wrong, but you don't want to talk about it. Someone that knows when to bring it up and when to shut up about it. Someone that'll sit in his room for an hour with you and play a childish game until your whole mind is just… empty. Everybody deserves a best friend like mine. "Think… think zoo."

"Orange. But not super orange… like a soft orange. Maybe yellow." I toss a kernel of popcorn over my head and he catches it in his mouth too. "Five left." He's kicking my ass. He has three left and I have five. We used to play this game for hours on end. Not everybody knows how to play "popcorn-guesses" and that's okay. We made it up, anyway. We made it up when we were seven. We start off with a bowl of popcorn and we both take twelve kernels of popcorn out of the bowl and put them in our laps. We pick a category, like movies, animals or TV shows and then we sit with our backs to each other. I usually start by asking him a question about the thing that he picked. Every time you ask a question, you have to throw a piece of popcorn over your head and if you catch it in your mouth, you get a second piece of popcorn and an extra guess. If you don't catch it in your mouth, you miss your turn. The person who loses all their popcorn first, wins. I have five pieces of popcorn in my lap and he has three.

"Tiger?" He guesses.

"Tigers aren't yellow, dumbass. Heads up." I toss a piece over my head and listen as he catches it. "Four left… and my first guess is a flamingo."

"Wrong. Go again."

"…An ostrich?"

"You cheated!" He laughs. "What was your animal?"

"A duck."

"DUCK'S AREN'T ORANGE, JO."

"They could be!"

"Cheater…Wanna go for round eight?"

"You bet." I grab another handful of popcorn and count out twelve pieces each for us. "You pick the category."

"…Category is… movies. Got yours?"

"Yep. You first."

"…Horror?"

"Yes." I toss him a piece of popcorn. "Yours a comedy?"

"Nope."

"Dammit."

"Ghost movie?" He keeps his popcorn to himself because I had a wrong guess. "Jo…"

"Not a ghost movie. Eat up." I toss him a piece of popcorn. "And what?"

"…Did you and Alex do it? Is that where you got that bruise from?"

"No." I clear my throat. "Horror movie?"

"Yep." He throws me a piece of popcorn and I miss it. "So are you gonna tell me the real reason you don't want to go back to the Myers' or nah?"

"…Shouldn't you be in bed? It's a school night."

"I'm not going to school tomorrow… my mom said I could stay here with you, if I want. …You do realize that my mom can't adopt you if you're staying here against the law though, don't you?"

"…I don't want to get adopted, Shane." I turn around so we're not sitting with our backs to each other anymore. "I don't know why it's so hard for me to just stay here without getting adopted. Why do I have to get adopted at all? And I really didn't even think your mom was still pursuing the whole adoption thing…" I put my head on his shoulder. "My movie was Nightmare on Elm Street, by the way."

"Mine was Insidious." He puts his head against mine too. "But yeah, my mom's still serious about it. She talks about you every day, J. She even started making plans for Nick and Matt to share a room so you can have your own, when you move in. But if you don't want us to adopt you… then what's even the point?"

"It's not that I don't want you to. It's just… I just feel like… what's the point? I don't know why I can't stay here without having to be adopted. I feel like adoption is a long process anyway. And plus, I've been adopted already. Is it even legal for one child to be adopted twice?" I sigh. "The only thing that would make my life even remotely easier right now is if my grandmother never died. It just sucks how everything's all different now, because of a stupid heart attack. Everything just went to shit within the matter of three weeks. It hasn't even been a month yet. Why is it so bad to not want to go to a foster home? At least if I stayed here, I could have a chance at being normal again. I'll never fit in at Franklin… I'll never be… comfortable in the Myers' house. I'm beginning to think I should just live in my car…"

"What was even bad about the Myers' house? When I talked to you that first night you stayed there, you said it was nice. And up until this morning, me and my mom both thought you were okay. I got all scared when they came here looking for you today. They said they haven't seen you and I was scared. I thought you went and offed yourself or something. Which is why I was so mad at you. Sorry for hurting you in the kitchen, by the way."

"You didn't hurt me, Shane." _If you tell Shane about the Jason thing, he'll never let you hear the end of it. Maybe you can manipulate the story though… just a little bit. _"The Myers' are nice people and all, but… I just don't belong there, you know? And the one twin… the one I was telling you about? He had a big crush on me, which was weird. I told you how I kissed him and all… but he just never let that the hell go. He was like… in love with me, Shane. He literally fell in love with me over a KISS. He was talking about fighting Alex for me and how he wanted me to be his and all that… like all I did was kiss the guy and he was like… sprung or something."

"Well there you go. Jo has that effect on the guys. And poor Alex…. you won't even let him taste that."

"It's not even like that, jerk." I swat him in his arm. "…Did I tell you how I found naked pictures in his phone? Some chick named Lucy or whatever… yeah."

"LEFTY LUCY?! NO WAY!"

"You know her?!"

"Everyone on the whole damn football team knows her! Her and Alex were banging for like EVER…"

"So they had sex? Like… actual sex?"

"…You found her nudes in his phone, what'd you think they were doing? Building a clubhouse together?" He shakes his head like he's amazed or shocked or something. "And we all know that you're not giving Karev any, so… Damn. Jackson won the bet. We bet twenty bucks that Karev would nail Princess before he'd bang Lefty again… I'm starting to think I'm wrong." He starts to laugh a little. "Then again, Jackson also thought that he'd be nailing Princess by the end of the month, so I'm gonna keep this bet going…"

"COME ON, SHANE. You HAVE to tell me what's said on the football bus now! COME ON! He told me ALL about Glasses, Shorty, Blondie… IBG, Eeyore, Snoopy, Stop, Lefty… even PRINCESS. Come on!"

"HE TOLD YOU ABOUT PRINCESS?!"

"Yes, he did. And I have you know that PRINCESS is not amused!"

"WHAT DID HE TELL YOU ABOUT PRINCESS?!"

"Just know that I KNOW who Princess is. AND NO, ALEX WILL NOT BE 'NAILING' PRINCESS BY THE END OF THE MONTH."

"…It's all locker room talk, J."

"SO now you have to tell me what's said! I know who everyone is… come on."

"…I'll tell you a LITTLE bit, okay? I'll tell you… I'll tell you the awards, but that's IT."

"What awards?"

"…Every guy on the team gives out awards, okay? We vote and we give out awards. I'll tell you about the awards, but no more than that." He's smiling so wide right now. "So… So Glasses has the prettiest smile… as voted by the team." He starts counting off on his fingers. "Glasses is prettiest smile… Shorty is cutest smile and best lips. Blondie… let me tell you about BLONDIE." His eyebrows furrow up and down, and I just now remember exactly who Blondie is. _Yeah, I bet he has a lot to say about Blondie. I just want to know about Princess, though. _"Blondie got sexiest voice, best teeth, most bangable, biggest flirt, best legs… for me, she won best… you know…"

"…What awards did Princess win, Shane? I think Princess deserves to know, don't you?"

"Well Shane doesn't want Princess to wring his neck, so Shane isn't telling Princess shit. Shane's gonna leave that to Princess's boyfriend."

"WHAT. AWARDS. DID. PRINCESS. WIN, SHANE?"

"…Princess can't be mad, okay? Just know that the whole team voted and we all agree… alright? Except me, because I don't really judge Princess like that. But I kind of agree with some things… okay?" I nod. "Okay so let's see… Best ass in the freshman class, nicest rack in the freshman class, hottest non-cheerleader um… biggest tease, most desirable, best model body, prettiest eyes, third one, most kissable… there's a lot more that I just can't think of."

"…What's 'third one'?"

"…The third one we'd have a threesome with. Well… them, anyway. I picked Blondie and Snoopy, but everyone else said that they'd do Princess and Blondie… and possibly Lefty if she wasn't such a hoe."

"…And you guys just let it GO?!"

"It's just football bus, locker room talk. Nobody takes it seriously. Plus, we all kind of like having the hottest girlfriends. It's a pride thing, you wouldn't get it. But when the guys agree that your girl has the sexiest voice, you feel a sense of accomplishment. Like… the whole team thinks my girl is hot and I'M hitting that. You wouldn't understand."

"…You're right. I don't understand." I clear my throat. "What'd Stop and Snoopy and Eeyore win?"

"Stop got runner up for most desirable. Snoopy won biggest freak and Eeyore got hottest body."

"…What does Alex say when Princess gets voted for things like that?"

"Nothing, really. He basically just says that he agrees, and that everyone should be jealous. But we can't take him seriously because at least one person on the bus has had a member of the nicknames, aside from Glasses and Princess. We don't take him seriously when he's never even gotten it in with Princess, you know?"

"So the whole team knows that Alex and Princess haven't…."

"Yep."

"…You guys are buttholes." I poke my lip out. "FOR THE RECORD… Princess could've done something with Alex last night, but she…"

"Was scared? Yeah, he tells all of us that."

"HUH?!"

"He tells us all that he could've had Princess so many times but she's scared. He told us that he almost had poor little Princess but he got interfered with or something. I'm just saying… we all know that poor little Princess is scared."

"SHE'S NOT SCARED!" I slap Shane in his arm again. "She just doesn't want to be like…the skank who sleeps with a guy she doesn't know. Especially with Alex cause he's special. She's not scared, she's just waiting for the right time."

"Wanna know what Shane thinks?" He nudges me. "Shane thinks that Princess needs to get over herself because it's just sex and it's something that everybody does. And people are gonna just know whenever she finally does do it with Alex. Even if he doesn't tell people, everyone's gonna get the picture. So she needs to get over it. She should've just did it with him last night."

"…It's a lot more complicated than that, even though Princess… fuck this talking in code shit." I roll my eyes. "I could've had sex with Alex last night if I wanted to, but it's more complicated than that. I had every opportunity to, and if I was thinking straight, I probably would have. I'm not afraid to. I'm just not ready to. There's a difference."

"…Yeah, it was a lot easier to talk to you about your nonexistent sex life when you were referring to yourself as Princess." He clears his own throat. "I know you judge Leah for having sex with me in the first week that we got together, but it wasn't like… she's easy or anything. She wanted to and I wanted to, and we just did. Your problem is you think about it too much. And me and Leah are going strong still. It's like… it took our relationship to the next level and we're closer because of it. It's not just sex and dump. We're freshmen, J. We're old enough to have a sexual relationship and keep it casual."

"Whatever, you don't get it. I'm NOT scared to have sex with Alex. I don't think you understand how close I've come to just doing it. I could've done it twice now. I didn't do it the first time because I was having an issue below my waist and then I just wasn't ready last night. It's not like I'm scared to death. I mean, I AM scared… But not of him. I'm just scared about what it's gonna be like. I don't know if I can handle it. And he doesn't pressure me to do it. He totally got why I couldn't do it last night."

"…If you're not scared of him, then what are you afraid of?"

"…Let's… hypothetically speaking, let's say that Princess wanted to. And she did. But when she did, she wasn't sure if she was ready and she freaked out…during it and then Alex broke up with her."

"Why would you freak out, J?"

"I don't know…"

"…Is it the same reason you freaked out when I pushed you?"

"Something like that." I shrug. "It's whatever. Do you really think your mom will adopt me, anyway? I really don't want to go back to the Myers…"


	28. Unblock

"If you fall out of the tree, I'm going to be forced to laugh at you. I'm telling you, I'm just gonna have to do it." I stop jumping for a couple seconds just to tell him that. When we were younger, we used to play circus outside on is trampoline and he used to be the "trapeze" artist that hung off the tree branch that hangs over the trampoline and he's doing that again. Over the years, Shane's gotten heavier and the tree branch has gotten weaker so I wouldn't be surprised if he falls down. "I'm not even going to have an option. It's gonna be like… a must or something. I'm going to HAVE to laugh at you." I continue jumping on the trampoline, waiting to get enough height to turn a backflip on it. I taught myself how to flip on the trampoline back when I was young with a whole lot of energy and fearless. I was never thin enough to do one on the ground, though.

"I'm not gonna fall out of the tree." He's hanging upside down by his feet. "So I was thinking… wanna hear what I was thinking?" He pulls himself upright and jumps down back onto the trampoline. He sits down at the far end of it with his legs crossed Indian-style. I just ignore him and turn my first backflip. It's never a good thing when Shane starts thinking. Usually when he's thinking, it ends with me getting hurt or in some type of compromising position that gets me into trouble. Plus, it doesn't matter if I answer him or not; he's gonna tell me what he's thinking anyway. "I was thinking that when you leave tonight, maybe my mom can tell your foster family that you can come here every weekend. I know it's not a permanent solution, but it's something… isn't it?"

"I thought I told you that I didn't want to talk about leaving today?" I stop turning backflips and sit down across from him on the trampoline. "If you want me to be honest with you, I would've never came here if I knew your mom was just gonna call them to come get me." I flop back and lie flat against my back on the trampoline, looking up at the sky. It's unusually clear for a fall, Seattle day. It'll probably rain a little later. I seriously don't even want to think about the Myers' coming to get me later, so I change the subject. "You ever wonder how much bleach you have to just chug for it to kill you?" I squint my eyes and try to find pictures in the clouds. "You think it'd work if you mixed Kool-Aid packets and sugar with it?"

"…Well I'm still thinking that it'd taste pretty terrible." He crawls over to the spot on the trampoline that I'm lying down on and lies down next to me. "I know you don't want to talk about J, but we kind of have to. I know we've been kind of like… drifting apart ever since this school year started… because we're in two totally different crowds anymore, but you're still my best friend and I still miss you. And I miss this, too. Don't you?"

"Of course I miss this, Shane. I miss everything." I sit up and just look at him. "I miss my freaking life. But I don't want to keep coming over here and teasing myself with the life I used to have. It still bugs me that I can look out your bathroom window and see the house I used to live in. It bugs me how I can just drive across town and be in a totally different school district. Of course I miss this. But what can I do about it? I lost the right to feel any type of way about anything, because I don't have a choice in anything anymore. Why would I want to tease myself with all the things I miss? I would've never came over here if I thought you guys were just gonna send me back." I nonchalantly crack my knuckles and wrinkle my eyebrows. "Would it be melodramatic if I said I'd rather die than go back to my foster home?"

"…A little bit, yeah." He sits up too. "I just think you're overreacting a little bit. If the only reason you don't want to go back is because you don't want to go to Franklin, then you're being overly dramatic about it. It's not like you're a bullied mess at Franklin. After what you did to the fat chick, I tend to think that everyone would leave you alone… don't you think?"

"Just because I beat the girl up doesn't mean that I'm not a victim, Shane. They call me a whore, a bitch, a slut… tell me I'm fat, tell me I'm ugly. They still pick on me. And it's so much different than Garfield. Nobody even gave me a chance from the start." I push my hair back and sigh. "Plus, it's a lot more complicated than that. While I'd rather hug a cactus than go back to Franklin, that's definitely not the only reason I don't want to go back to the Myers. There's way more to it than that."

"Okay seriously, Jo… how long do you expect me to feed into your bullshit?" He glares at me with his angry eyes and purses his lips. "You have my mom fooled, but have you ever been able to lie to me? I'm just saying… if you're gonna lie about it, stop dropping hints like you want me to point out the fact that you're lying through your teeth."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that I saw the video of the fight and the girl NEVER got a hit in. She kicked you, but she never got a hit in your face. You didn't let her get a hit in." He offers his hand for me to hold it but I don't take it. "And also about the fact that you can't even look me in the eye and tell me that your foster mom didn't hit you at least once. Quit lying to me. Franklin has nothing to do with the fact that you don't want to go back and you know it. Lie to my mom, lie to yourself all you want. But you're not gonna lie to me, Jo."

I reach out and grab firmly onto his chin. I look him square in his eyes. "Except for the fact that I'm NOT lying. Paula never hit me. I'm looking you in your eyes and telling you that she never hit me. So drop it…okay?"

"Well somebody did." He swats my hand away from his face and rubs the bridge of his nose. "I hate to go here, but did… did Alex? Because your face was NOT like this when I saw you at the game on Friday. It's Monday and BAM, you have a black eye and a busted lip? And bruises on your neck and back? Somebody hit you. And if you're gonna insist that it wasn't your foster mom, then who?"

"Don't ever…" I shake my head at him and decide how to approach the fact that he just pissed me off. "Alex would NEVER hit me, Shane. Don't ever imply that again. If you value our friendship… you'll never do that again. Don't ever…"

"Well I didn't think that he would, but you never know. If it wasn't your foster mom, then I'm just taking a wild guess here. Just tell me how you messed your face up… will you at least tell me that? Or will you please tell me about the bruises on your back? I won't tell anybody about it… I just need to know. You're supposed to me my best friend but you're lying to me…"

"I'm not lying, Shane. I'm just not telling you. There's a difference. I can't tell you, so please leave it at that?"

"Since when can you not tell me something, J? Since when? I tell you everything. I even told you about that time I got my… you know… stuck in that… you know. If I can tell you that, then you can tell me anything. No matter how embarrassing it is. Did you get the bruises from doing something in an inappropriate place?" He puts his hand on my knee. "Leah has a bruise in the middle of her back from us doing it in the backseat of her brother's car… I'm just saying."

"No." I tuck my hair behind my ear and draw my tongue to the split in the middle of my bottom lip. "I love you, Shane. I love you and you're my best friend in the entire world… which is WHY I can't tell you." I clear my throat. "I care about what you think of me. I mean, I told Alex, yeah… actually, I didn't even tell him. He just put two and two together, really. But anyway, I care about how you perceive me. I care if you think I'm nasty, dirty… anything like that. I don't care about anyone else, but I care about what you think. So please just let this go."

"So you think I'm gonna judge you? What'd you do, have sex with the whole football team? I know you didn't do that, and that's the ONLY thing that could make me think any less of you. If you went out and slept with the whole football team PLUS the basketball team, then I'd think you're a skank. I know you didn't do that. So I'm not judging. But I am begging. I want to know what happened."

"…I know you have secrets that you've kept from me, Shane. I know you do. Haven't you ever…" I sigh again. "Haven't you ever been so ashamed of something that you just don't want to talk about it? Haven't you ever been so far to blame for something bad that happened that you don't even want to admit it? It's kind of like that. I'm not gonna tell you, so just stop."

"You don't have to be embarrassed to tell me, though! Embarrassed, ashamed… I don't care. And whatever you did can't possibly be that much of your fault. I don't care if you assassinated someone, that still doesn't warrant you to be beat to hell like that. Your face is all messed up, your neck is all bruised, your back is all bruised. It looks like someone kicked you down three flights of steps. Are you ashamed because you got beaten up? Guess what, it happens!"

"It's not that! Just drop it. I'm not ready to talk about it. Not with you, not with ANYONE. I wouldn't even talk to Alex about it. Yeah, he knows… but it's not like I sat down and told him everything. I DON'T want to talk about it, that's the thing. You think that I'm not talking about it because I'm ashamed, which is kind of true but I also don't WANT to talk about it. It sucked, it happened, I LET it happen, I deserved it and I'm moving on. So please let me move on."

"…You know what?" He pinches the bridge of his nose again and sighs. "Every time I start to admire you… for being grown up… for being mature… you go ahead and prove to me that I shouldn't. I used to think you were the most mature person I knew… but you really need to grow up anymore, J. You need to grow up and suck everything up. Yeah, life's been shitty for you these past couple weeks, but life gets shitty sometimes. Life gets shitty and that's just the way it is. And you think that shutting the people that care about you completely out is the way to deal with things, but you're wrong. All you're doing is hurting yourself in the end." He stands up and walks to the exit zipper of the trampoline. "And if you want to hurt yourself, fine. But I'm not just gonna sit around and let you treat me like shit when all I'm trying to do is help you. All we're trying to do is help you and you won't let anybody. So you know what? I don't care anymore. Do whatever you want." He unzips the trampoline zipper and puts one foot out to step down onto the ladder. "Who even are you, anymore? It's like I don't even know you anymore. They say death changes people… but I never thought it'd change you."

"Wait, Shane!" _You really don't need to lose him. I know you don't really want to talk to him about it, but he's mad at you. He's angry with you and he's about to leave and maybe it won't hurt if you told him… _But I just really don't want to talk about it anymore. I'm so ashamed of myself… but at this point, what choice do I have? My brain is so full and my head is just so mixed up. If I tell him, he's going to judge me. But if I don't tell him, I risk losing him. Does it even matter anymore? I mean seriously, what's the use? My head is just going to implode. "…I wanna show you something, okay? But you have to promise me that you won't ask questions." My eyes suddenly get all warm and I feel tears coming on. "Promise me you won't ask questions and you'll just listen. Because I REALLY don't want to talk about it."

He zips the trampoline netting back up, walks back over towards me and flops back down next to me. "I'm just saying… you never keep secrets from me. You always tell me everything and you've never been worried about me judging you before. What makes now any different? That's all I'm saying. If… if I came to you with a black eye, you would want to know how I got it. And you'd go crazy if I wouldn't tell you. I just want to know what's wrong with you, because you're NOT okay, Jo. I know you're not okay."

"No questions…okay? No questions. Just let me… let me explain." I bite my bottom lip and grit my teeth together. I lift up my heavy hair and push it to the side, exposing the bruise on my neck. "I lied to you…" His eyes are just glued to the nasty, purple bruise on the base of my neck, from Jason choking me. "When I told you that I just pecked my foster brother, by 'peck', I meant I really…hardcore made out with him." I swallow a lump in my throat and let my hair back down once I'm sure he got a good enough look at the bruise. I grab the rim of my shirt and pull it up over my head so that I'm sitting in front of him in nothing but my bra. His jaw drops at the sight of all the nastiness that is my back. Bruises, scratches, indentations, red marks… my back is the worst. "I let him touch me. I let him… feel me up." My voice is coming out a little lower than I'd like, but I don't even bother to adjust it. "It took me a while to realize that I hated it and then I stopped him. But like I said… I don't know WHAT it was… about the kiss that made him go crazy. For the rest of that week, he would… touch me, smack me on my ass, tell me that I'm… sexy and stuff. All from that kiss." I wince a little bit as Shane reaches his hand out and touches the harshest bruise on my back. "On Friday… right after the game, I snuck back out to go see Alex and like I told you, Alex broke up with me. So I came home and I was really upset, so I just went straight to bed."

_Talking about it really feels similar to cutting. Not as good as cutting feels, but almost a sweet alternative. Like I'm releasing myself just by telling someone I trust. I guess I'm glad it's Shane… _I curl my legs up into my chest and put my forehead against my knees so he doesn't have to see my face when I explain to him what REALLY happened. "I was about to fall asleep… but my foster brother… J…Jason, he came in my room." My stomach just twists and turns into a big, giant knot. "I swear I told him no. I swear to God I told him that I didn't want to. Even though I kissed him and made the first move on him that day we kissed on the couch, it doesn't mean that I wanted it… you know?" I choke back a little bit of vomit. "I didn't like it. And I begged him the entire time not to. I asked him to stop, to leave me alone, to just… spare me, or something. But it seemed like… it seemed like the more I cried, the more he got off on it… like my tears turned him on or something." I pick my head up out of my knees and throw it up to the sky. "…Who does that? ...Who could do that? If a girl was crying, screaming and begging you not to… how could you stay… _hard? _How could you do that? What kind of human likes the sound of begging and pleading?

My jaw trembles and I wipe a couple tears off my chin. "But I didn't fight him off. I didn't… I didn't kick or scream. I asked him to stop. I asked him to stop SO many times and I tried so hard to get him to leave me alone, but he just wouldn't. I'm strong…aren't I? I took down at 200 pound girl. But he was so… mean? And he kept telling me that he gets what he wants and he wanted me so he was gonna…take me. I never thought he'd actually do it until he did it. I wanted him off, but… he's big, and mean, and heavy and just…" When I feel like I can actually stomach looking Shane in his face, I turn my head towards him. He has wet marks streaming down his cheeks too. "For an hour… a whole hour. And then… I just thought… I thought okay, this will never happen again. I'll forget about it, he'll forget about it, we'll put it in the past and everything will be okay." I reach over and wipe tears off Shane's face but he just sits still, like he was turned into stone. "But in the kitchen the next night…" _In the kitchen the next night? Oh my god, yes. That's right. That's totally right. I remember… I remember that. Three times, if that counts, right? Oh my god Jo, yes. You're right. It was more than that… _"I was doing the dishes while everybody else was in the study room doing their homework, and Paula was bathing the baby…" I'm not even telling Shane the story anymore; I'm telling myself. I'm telling myself what I neglected to remember… what I… blocked out? "He apologized to me." I nod my head, remembering. "He came up behind me, kissed me on my cheek and said he was sorry… but not that he was sorry for doing any of that. He was sorry that I…" I wrinkle my eyebrow. I'm losing it… _Yeah, that's right! _"He said he was 'Sorry that I'm so sexy'. And he…" _Yes he did. You're totally right. _"He put his hand down there and he started touching me again, then his sister came in and caught it. He acted like he wasn't doing anything, but when she left the kitchen, he told me that he'd… he'd 'finish later'. And he did…" I swat a couple more tears away. "So when I say that I can't go back there, Shane… I really mean it. I don't mean that I don't WANT to go back, I mean I CAN'T go back. I just keep thinking that it's gonna continue to happen and…" I look up at the sky again. "I mean, I know I deserve it and all, but I don't know if I can just let it happen… you know?"

"…What the HELL makes you think you deserved that?" His face reads a cross between anger and a hint of sadness. As if he's too "manly" to cry, he roughly wipes his eyes and stands up. He sweeps my shirt off the trampoline and hands it to me. "You didn't deserve that! Since when does a KISS translate into… THAT?!" He's seething with anger. I slide my arms through the holes in my shirt and pull it back over my head, careful to keep concealing the cuts on my wrist. "…Come on. We're going in the house." He grabs my right arm and pulls me up. "…You don't need to be out here anymore. Let's go… we're going inside."

"I'm perfectly capable of walking, you can let go of me." I stand up on my own and follow him through the exit screen of the trampoline. As soon as both of our feet touch down on the grass of his backyard, he grabs my right arm once again and starts dragging me towards the back door. "Shane…. Shane… SHANE." I try to pull myself out of his grasp but he's manhandling me and using all of his muscles. "Shane, let go of me. Let go…okay? I…" I know exactly what he's doing. _He wouldn't betray me like this, would he? He wouldn't make me do what I KNOW he's going to make me do. He's my best friend… _"I want to stay out here."

"I don't care what you want anymore, Jo." He keeps pulling me. "If you keep doing what YOU want, somebody's gonna kill you. And you're not gonna care because your dumb ass is gonna think you deserve it." He uses his free hand to slide open the back door. "After what you just told me?! I don't care about what you want…"

"You said you would keep it a secret for me!" I lock my legs up to make myself excessively hard to move. He finds a way to drag me inside the house, though. "You said you wouldn't tell! I trusted you!"

"LOOK AT YOUR FACE, JO!" He grabs me by my shoulders and drags me all through his kitchen. I grab onto the counter to resist him. "LOOK AT YOUR FACE, YOUR BACK! I'M NOT KEEPING THIS A SECRET! WHAT KIND OF FRIEND WOULD I BE?!"

"Stoppit, Shane!" He pulls me out of the kitchen and into the living room, where his mom and his little brothers are all sitting, watching something on TV. I lock my legs up again and stand near the door. "You said you wouldn't tell… you said you wouldn't tell… it's not that big of a deal. I just want to keep it a secret." I run my hands through my hair because I literally feel like I'm losing my damn mind. I start thinking of how to lie my way out of this while he tells his little brothers to go upstairs or outside to play. _Is it even worth lying about anymore? _I grip my hair and pull it downwards. "You said you wouldn't tell…"

"I'm not telling… you are." He grabs my arms yet again and pulls me over so that I'm standing dead in front of his mom. "Mom, Jo has something to tell you…"

"No I don't." I shake my head and as I do, tears rattle off my cheeks and onto the floor. I cover my hands over my face and take a deep breath so I can take all of this in. He said he wouldn't tell… he said he'd keep my secret… he lied to me. Miss Kelly is just looking at me… from head to toe, her eyes examining me, taking in the scene of me standing in front of her, sobbing. Why is Shane doing this to me? Why is he making me talk about it? I told him… I told him I didn't want to talk about it. Why is he doing this? "I don't… I don't…"

"Ma, look…" Shane grabs my hair rather roughly and pulls it to the side, exposing the bruise that I showed him in confidence. My usual feisty-ness is nowhere to be found right now. I'm mortified, to say the least. I can't even move, let alone fight him off me. I seriously think I might use the bathroom on myself. I'm so… humiliated. My body just starts to shake…like I'm shivering but I'm not even cold. Why is he doing this to me? I mouth the word "stoppit" and gingerly shrug his hands off me. "She can't go back there, mom. Just look!" He grabs the edge of my shirt and lifts it up too.

"My god…" His mom whispers and stands up, her mouth covered with her hand.

Why is Shane doing this to me?

* * *

"We have ten minutes left, and you still haven't said anything. You shake your head when I asked you if you had anything you wanted to talk about, but I beg to differ. I think you have a lot to talk about…" She crosses her legs and her stocking make a weird, "zzzz" noise when they rub against each other. She folds her dark-skinned hands in her lap and starts shaking her foot. "I told you that this is a safe place, where you can tell me anything you want to tell me. You were a lot more talkative during our first visit…" She taps her black ballpoint pen against her spiral notebook and keeps trying. I push my tongue to the side of my cheek and sigh. _I'm done telling anybody ANYTHING. Everybody just betrays me anyway… screw this. _I slide my flip flop off and onto the floor and rub my toes against the soft, plush carpeting. If she thinks I have so much to tell her, why doesn't she just talk it out instead of me? I'm sure she already got an earful from Miss Kelly. "Jo…" I wrinkle my eyebrow in distaste to let her know that it's NOT okay for her to call me that. She doesn't know me well enough to call me by my short name and I don't even trust her. I thought I did, but I don't. "Josephine…" She caught on to my facial expression and changes it up. "Honey, I know you're angry, but that's why I'm here… to get some of that anger and frustration out."

_You have NO idea how "angry" I am. I could break everything in your precious little office right now, with no remorse. I could break your fingers right now, woman. You have NO idea how angry I am, so don't act like you do. You have NO idea. _I gnash my teeth against one another so that my jaw is nice and tight. Mrs. Who scribbles something down in the notebook and pushes her curly black hair out of her face. She kind of reminds me of Stephanie if I look at her real fast. She gives me an exasperated sigh and closes her notebook. "Before I let you go on home, I have one last exercise I want you to try for me." She reaches inside her desk drawer and tries to hand me a bright yellow ball. "I want you to go back two weeks ago… to when your grandmother passed on, okay? I want you to think about the day the social worker came and took you away from your friend's house. And I want you to remember exactly what you did on that day. And I want you to squeeze this yellow ball when you start to feel angry about that day… okay? I'm just asking you to think. I'm not asking you to talk… I'm just asking you to think about it. And I want you to allow yourself to remember that day. I want you to take down that block you have in your mind… and I want you to allow yourself to remember your emotions for that day… okay? Will you do that for me?" _If it'll make you send me home… _I lean forward and snatch the ball out of her hand. "Close your eyes if you need to, sweetie…"

I lean back in the chair, close my eyes and take a deep, relaxing breath. What does she want me to do? She wants me to "unblock" the day that Meadows came and took me out of Shane's house and over to the Myers'? I lick my lips and take another deep breath. _Unblock… unblock. Squeeze the ball if you get pissed._

"_Josephine, I just need you to get in the car. Come on, I lined you up with a really nice family and they're eager to meet you. You can't stay here any longer." Meadows tries to uncurl my fingers from Miss Kelly's shoulders. Nothing in this world can persuade me to stop hugging her. Why can't they just let me stay? When is it such a big deal? People stay with people that aren't their family members every day. Just let me stay. "It's time to say goodbye now."_

"_Fuck you." I spit out at her through clenched teeth._

My hand involuntarily contracts and squeezes the yellow, spongy stress-ball. After that, everything else is seriously just one big blur. I'm trying, but I just can't remember anything after that. I remember coming home from school with Shane that day and she was there waiting for me. I thought I was okay with leaving that day, but when I saw her, I just got… pissed. And she tried to pry me away from Shane's mom and I told her "fuck you." That's all I remember. _Can I go home now?_ I open up my eyes and lean forward to give her the stress-ball back.

"You keep that, honey." She shoves her notebook and pencil back inside her desk. "…Josephine? …How would you feel if I asked your mother about bringing you here to see me maybe…twice a week? How about Mondays and Wednesdays? Are you against that?" I shrug my shoulders. "Do you think your mother will mind? Your real mother, I mean. Not your foster mother."

"She's not my fucking mother." I don't realize that I've said a swear word until it's already out. I stand up from my chair and slide my shoes back on. "How stupid are you people? First those two gay doctors assume she's my mom, now you assume she's my mom? She's not my mother, I'm not adopted, I'll never BE adopted and I don't have a mother. She used to be my mother, but she's not anymore. You people can't possibly think she's actually my mother."

"Why don't you sit back down?" She doesn't seem angry, at all. In fact, she pulls her notebook and pen back out of her drawer and writes something in it. "What do you mean by 'she used to be' your mother? Do you want to talk about that?"

"I don't want to talk about anything. I just want to go the hell home." I sit back down in the chair and bawl my hands up into fists. I'm getting more and more irritated just being here. "She's not my mother, okay? Closest thing I have to one, but she's not it. I don't have a mother. I don't have one and I DON'T need one. Just leave me the fuck alone about it."

"…Why do you feel like Mrs. Ross would make an inadequate mother for you, Josephine?"

"I don't." I bite on my knuckle to control my anger. "She's just not my mom and she could never be. I used to think she was, but I was young and dumb. She's not my mom."

"…What happened to start making you think she's not your mother?"

"….Look bitch, I'm not fucking stupid, okay?" _Stop cussing so damn much. _My legs start to shake and my hands do too. I'm about to go the fuck off. "I'll never be part of the Ross family. I was so fucking stupid to ever think I could be. Just like those girls back in grade school said, a…" I really hate to bring it to this, but she just took me to this point. "…A little white girl could never fit in with a… black family. I don't belong with them… and I know it. She's not my mother and she could never be."

"So you feel like race is a problem?"

"I never fucking said that. DON'T make me seem like I'm a racist."

"But you just did say that, Josephine. You just told me that you don't feel like you could ever be a member of their family because you're white and they're black. So you feel like race is a problem? And I'm not calling you a racist, sweetheart. I'm not implying that."

"…No, I'm just saying." I wipe my sweaty hands on my jeans and bite my lip. "You asked me why she USED to be my mother and I'm telling you why she isn't anymore. I used to call her my mom but I don't anymore BECAUSE I'M WHITE and they're black. It's not a matter of how I feel about it, it's a matter of how everyone else feels. If people didn't think that way, I would've never had to hear about it. I don't call her my mom anymore FOR THAT REASON. I may think of her as my mom, but I don't call her my mom anymore BECAUSE SOMEONE TOLD ME THAT SHE COULD NEVER BE. That's all I'm saying."

"Why are you raising your voice with me?"

"BECAUSE YOU'RE PISSING ME OFF, CLEARLY! STOP ASKING ME STUPID FUCKING QUESTIONS."

"…Do you feel like my questions are stupid?"

"OBVIOUSLY!" I put my hands over my face and just…shake. _I've had too much for one fucking day. I'm tired. I'm still pissed off about the whole Shane-humiliating-me incident and now she's pissing me off too. _Angry tears are falling from my eyes. "I'm so sick of everyone asking me all these questions that I don't know the answers to, it's getting to be so fucking annoying! Like I just want to be left alone!"

"Do you want Mrs. Ross to be your mother? Is that the issue?"

"THERE'S NOT AN ISSUE, OH MY GOD! SHE'S NOT MY MOTHER! AND IT'S NOT BECAUSE SHE'S BLACK AND I'M WHITE, GOD THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANYTHING! SHE'S NOT MY MOM! I DON'T HAVE ONE! I DON'T HAVE A MOTHER! EVERYONE THAT I THINK OF AS A MOTHER, THEY FUCKING LEAVE OR DIE OR… OR…"

"Or they don't protect you, like you think a mother should?" With my hands in my face, I nod the answer to that question and just sob. "So you're feeling let down… by every possible mother-figure in your life? You know nothing about your real mother… your grandmother passed on you… and your foster mother didn't protect you from Jason, did she?" Mrs. Who hands me a box of tissues. "You don't want a mother… because you don't think mothers are good people… that's the problem, huh?"

"…She knew." My jaw trembles and I wipe my face. "She knew… the whole, freaking time… she knew." My face is probably so very red right now. I sniff hard and just… spill. "How could she just turn a blind eye to it?" I wipe my eyes again. Spilling… "She caught him… twice. And she acted like it wasn't anything!" _It wasn't Alyssa that walked in on it… you know it wasn't Alyssa. So why did you lie to Shane and say it was her? _"He fucking…" I bite my lip and just let my foul language take over. "She fucking caught him with his hand down my pants while I was washing the dishes… and she acted like she didn't see it! He was trying to FINGER me and she didn't do anything about it! And… she caught him in the bathroom while I was taking a shower. He was taking PICTURES of me, and she knew it… she didn't do anything. How could she just act like she didn't see it?" I hold my chest because my heart literally… hurts. "And then she sat there on that couch and called me a liar? She called me a liar… but she knew."

"…What couch, honey?"

"SHANE'S COUCH!" I throw the box of tissues across the room, at the window and groan in anger. "Shane made me tell… he MADE me… and his mom called them over… she called them over this afternoon and he sat there on that couch next to his mother… and he told everybody that I wanted it. That I ASKED him to do it. He said I ASKED him for it and his MOTHER called me a liar… to my FACE. Said that the bruises were because I'm a 'damaged' little girl… but she saw it. She saw it happen, TWICE. She knew… and she called me a liar." I sniff again. "…What kind of mother? She was supposed to protect me… I didn't have a choice but to trust them… and she didn't even care that he was doing this to me. She knew he was doing it. She knew about it… but she didn't say anything…"

"And what did Shane's mom do?"

"Threw them both out." My jaw keeps on trembling. I cover my hand over my mouth, look over at the door to avoid eye contact and just try to breathe. "I threw up… I… I wet my pants." I sigh again, sure that I've gotten all the harsh tears out so that the soft ones are left. "I came down the steps and I saw them sitting there on the couch… I saw him, and I threw up… like I did the next morning after he did what he did. I saw him on the couch and I threw up. And I sat down in front of him, he smiled at me and I wet my pants. Shane's mom argued that I wouldn't… I wouldn't get sick if he didn't force himself on me. She told them that I'm not a liar, and she's getting the police involved… and she threw them out. She gave me a hug, kissed me and she made them leave…"

"She comforted you… believed you and tried to protect you… like a mother would do?"

"…I guess." I shrug.

"African-American, Caucasian, Mexican, Asian… I don't think it matters, honey. I think you have yourself a mother. And I think… I think that if the courts let you stay with her, you need to stop pushing her away. Because that's a mother right there. The courts are letting you stay with the Rosses, aren't they?"

"It's not official, but yeah." I nod. "She went down and asked for a court date to see the judge about keeping me…"

"…I think you made real progress today, Jo. I think you made some pretty heavy steps towards getting better." She stands up and walks across the room to give me a hug. "…I want to see you again on Wednesday. Dr. Robbins and Dr. Torres asked about you… and I told them that I think you're going to be alright. Can I see you again on Wednesday?"

"Yeah."


	29. Teach Me

I put down the only ace that I have in my hand and wait for him to take his turn. "I mean yeah, I'm glad that I get to stay here and all… and I'm glad that I can at least try… to feel normal again. But I just keep thinking…What if things are never normal again? What if I'm stuck like this?" He puts down two cards and it's my turn again. I group together all my twos and put them face down in the pile. "Everybody just keeps thinking that if I talk about it, I'll feel all better and it'll go away. And maybe it will go away… but what if it doesn't?" I watch as he puts three cards down on the pile. "Bullshit." I mumble. He looks up like he didn't hear me, but I know he did. "BULLshit." I repeat myself. "There's no way in hell you have three fours in your hand when I have two of them. You're full of shit."

He throws his cards down in the pile and crosses his arms. "You fuckin' suck." This is the fourth time in a row I've beaten him. I don't even know why he attempts to play Bullshit with me anymore because he's such an awful liar when it comes to bluffing. Calling him out on it is just too easy. I pick up the cards and start shuffling them up again, assuming that he'll want to play another round. "But as far as the normal thing goes… I think if you give it time, it'll be alright. I mean, as long as you keep working through everything. It probably won't be the same as it was before, but it'll be close, hopefully. I say give it… a month."

"I don't have a month." I start dealing out the cards equally amongst the two of us. "I mean like… what if I'm never…okay with it?" Once I've exhausted all the cards, I cross my legs and wait for him to make the first move. "And a month is a long time. I don't want to wait a month. I'm trying to go like… next week or something. I don't know…" By the change of expression on Shane's face, I can tell that he gets what I'm trying to allude to…without actually saying it. "I'm not even sure how long I'm expecting him to wait at this point."

"I know Alex, and I know that he'll understand if you're not ready…especially after everything you went through. It's not like waiting is going to kill him. He probably already understands. You don't give him enough credit."

"No Shane, I'm saying… that I WANT to." _After everything you've been through, why is anything even awkward anymore? You're not a little baby anymore. You've done more growing up in the last couple weeks than most people do in their lifetime. Start talking like you're as old as you feel… it's pointless to even act like you're not like that anymore. _I look over and make sure that Shane's door is shut, so nobody will be able to hear our conversation. "I've been thinking about it ever since it happened. It's weird, because even though it was with Jason, I've been thinking about what if it was with Alex… you know? And I want to… I really, really, really, REALLY want to have sex with Alex. But the thought just keeps crossing my mind… like what if I'm never going to be able to get Jason out of my head long enough to ever enjoy sex with anybody? I don't know… It's just… it's not Alex that I'm worried about with waiting. It's me. I don't wanna wait."

"…This is so weird to be giving you sex advice…" He hides his face in his hands, and for once, he's the one that's blushing. "But I dunno… Just…" He looks at me again. "Take it slow. Maybe… start it out with kissing… and then the next time some touching….then… hand action… then all the way. Okay?" He blows out a huff of air. "I don't really know what to say, considering the fact that me and Leah never take anything slow. Me and Leah don't go slow, so I'm a little new with this. But I don't think slow would be a bad thing for you and Alex to consider. I mean, you're not Leah, so slow would be better…"

"What do you mean, 'I'm not Leah?'" I wrinkle my brow at him and cross my arms.

"I meant… I just meant that Leah's not scared. Leah… Leah does a lot of work… you know?" Surprisingly, it's not awkward for me to be hearing what Shane and Leah do in the bedroom. Shane's sort of an expert with this whole sex thing… he's been doing it since he was twelve. I'm still rather… juvenile at this, so any piece of advice helps, I guess. "You're really nervous about it, and she was never nervous. And she's… wild. You're… not." He shrugs. "So slowness isn't a bad thing."

"But I don't get the impression that Alex is a slow kind of guy." I put my hand of cards down on the bed and stretch my legs out. "I mean, I've heard stories and I know that he's not exactly new to the game. He was dating Lucy and I've heard horror stories about that girl. So if he's used to doing it with her, it'll be a huge step-down to go to me. I don't do the things that I've heard she does. I don't…" I stick my tongue out and wiggle it, instead of saying the word. "You know? I don't do any of that. I'm just nervous that I'll be bad, and I'll freak out because of the whole Jason thing and then he'll never want to do it with me again. I've got the kissing thing down pact, but nothing else."

"…Well first of all, you have GOT to loosen up." He puts his cards down too. "…I don't know, J…" He shakes his head. "This is just weird. Wh…why don't I call Leah? You're a girl and she's a girl and you guys can talk about this together. She'll give you all the advice and she'll run through things with you and… it won't be awkward, because you're both GIRLS."

"No, Shane. I'm… I'm comfortable with you." I put my face in my hands and laugh. "First of all, I'd have to explain to Leah why I'm so scared to jump in bed with Alex and I'm greatly opposed to telling anybody else about Jason. And second of all… just come on! You're my best friend and I'm asking you for help. What do I do with this? Okay, I wanna have sex. I want to have sex with my boyfriend, I'm nervous to have sex with my boyfriend, I don't know HOW to… do the whole sex thing. Help me. You're a pro at all of this." I keep laughing. "Plus, I don't want him to keep telling everybody how scared I am to jump his bones. That pissed me off, actually. I'm NOT scared to have sex, I just don't feel like it's the right time."

"You're totally scared J, which is okay." He sighs. "Alright. So first of all, you gotta loosen up. Loosen yourself up. Get your little baby ears accustomed to hearing bad words. Dirty talk is all part of sex. You'll probably talk dirty and so will he… it's not awkward, it's part of sex. And—"

"…Can't I just stick with not talking? Why do I have to talk? Nobody ever talks in the movies. It's not like they're having full out conversations while they're doing it. I thought it was okay to just… moan?"

"Yeah, but…" He shakes his head at me and mumbles the word, "hopeless." I suck my teeth at him. "Occasionally… a word or two might slip out. Like maybe a… 'fuck' or a 'shit'… those might slip out and if they do, it's okay. Talking is cool. Talking is hot. Talking is sexy. Leah's a talker. Guys dig talkers."

"…What does she say?" I'm literally taking mental notes. "For references…"

"…You don't need to know. And if…" He closes his eyes. "If the boy is doing his job right, you won't have to think about what to say. It'll just come out."

"…I can't do this. I can't have sex. Thanks for trying to help me, but I can't." I scratch my elbow and just sigh. "…You know how it's obvious when couples are having sex? Like… their body language, the way they look at each other… like… like how Jackson looks at April… or how you're okay to just stick your hand on Leah's butt? You know how it's obvious to outsiders when couples are boning?" I lick my lips. "I just feel like it's obvious to everyone that me and Alex haven't even done anything past kissing. And I don't want it to be. I'd… I'd like to have one of those other relationships. Where it's obvious that you…are doing it."

"Well yeah, it kind of is obvious that he's not sleeping with you. Everyone in the entire high school knows that you're not doing it. But it's not a bad thing. It's… respectable. That he's still with you, even though you're not putting out."

My jaw drops. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means that he likes you, J. It means that you changed him. You know Alex… you know he doesn't hesitate to jump in the bed with a girl. He's had lots of sex…. But you're not giving him any and he hasn't even dumped you yet… like we all thought he would."

"What the fuck? …So you're telling me that I should put up…aren't you? You're telling me that everyone thinks… that I need to sleep with him already?"

"See, you're taking everything I say out of context. I'm not saying any of that, J. No talking for a minute. You don't say a word, you just LISTEN." He looks me dead in my eyes. "You're a little bit oblivious to the obvious. I always thought that you just didn't care about Alex's reputation, but now I see that you really just didn't know. He screws everyone, J. Every girl he dates, he screws them. I'm saying you should feel special, because he's acting totally different with you. The fact that he's not even really worried about sleeping with you… says a lot. I men, he would like to sleep with you, but it's not one of his priorities. You should feel really special."

"Well I don't feel special. I feel like an ass…I feel like… you're basically telling me that everyone thinks I'm stupid… because I'm dating him when he's a notorious man-whore? You basically just told me that everyone thought he was gonna break up with me… like he can't stay in a committed relationship without sex or something. He dated Lucy for a year…" I look down at the ground. "…He seems like a really nice guy, though. A little bit… douche-y at first, but nice…am I missing something?"

"He is a nice guy, Jo. I never said he wasn't. Can I just be honest with you?"

"Go ahead."

"…Everyone just thinks you're a little bit…childish for him. You… you still blush at the sound of nasty words. You don't really talk about things that disgust you… you're just a little bit immature. That's all. It's not that Alex isn't a nice guy, it's just that he's a little bit… older for you. Not just by in age, either. You're young-minded and he's not. That's all."

"I'm not young-minded, though. I've seen a lot of things… don't you know? And if… if _blushing _at something that makes me uncomfortable means I'm immature then…"

"No one's saying that. I happen to think you're very mature for your age. You know how to focus, you respect yourself… but when it comes to… adult things, you get all weird." He sighs and picks up his deck of cards again. "Let's stop talking about this. I can see that it's making you a little bit mad and I don't want you to escalate. So… so… so uh… What'd you and your therapist talk about today?"

"…Nothing. I'm tired. I'm going to bed." _No, You'll never be normal again._

* * *

**Tues, Nov 3, 2013**

**4:22 p.m.**

**Group iMessage**

**Leah: **JOE!

**Heather: **!

**Stephanie: **WHAT'S UP BUDDY!?

**Me: **i'm honestly feeling so attacked right now :/ where'd you guys come from?

**Leah: **My mom's vajayjay

**Me: **ew?

**Leah: **Anyway, what's up Joe?

**Steph: **We heard from a lil birdy today that youre coming back? :D

**Me: **i told shane not to tell anybody, but yeah. i think i can come back next week? as soon as my transcripts are transferred back.

**Heather: **YAY, JOE'S COMING BACK!

**Me: **you guys do know that it's just JO right?

**Steph: **Yeah but after the way you manhandled the big bitch, we decided you needed a manlier name LOL

**Me: **oh wow lol. but whats up guys?

**Heather: **chicken butt

**Leah: **studying for a test that I'm gonna fail

**Steph: **Currently washing my hair

**Me: **then how the hell are you on the phone you weirdo?

**Leah: **yeah what joE said…

**Heather: **it's possible

**Me: **yeah but how?

**Leah: **Whatever anyway, I was txting to see if you guys want to come over around 6. So we can chill and welcome joE back.

**Heather: **your house?

**Steph: **I'm in.

**Leah: **heather bring my pink headphones over when you come.

**Leah: **& yeah, my house

**Steph: **You said around 6? So PLL date at 8?

**Heather: **Oh yeah, it is Tuesday. PLL?

**Leah: **sure whatever. brother's not home so we can have the tv in the basement. PLL date sounds good. pizza?

**Heather: **YES OMG PIZZA

**Steph: **I'm kinda feeling Chinese but pizza's cool too

**Heather: **we just had Chinese on Sunday steph. Aren't you sick of Chinese?

**Steph: **Me? sick of Chinese? PLSSSS

**Leah: **pizza or Chinese? My mom will only pay for one or the other

**Heather: **pizza.

**Steph: **pizza.

**Leah: **ok pizza it is. What on it?

**Heather: **wait, isn't Jo allergic to pizza?

**Leah: **oh yeah! cheese… so I guess it's Chinese

**Steph: **:D :D

**Leah: **where the f is Jo?

**Steph: **did we accidentally kick her out of the convo?

**Heather: **no her number still shows up

**Steph: **joooooooooooo?

**Heather: **Jo?

**Leah: **You still there, Mike Tyson?

**Me: **I'm not allowed over. Sorry.

**Leah: **:( maybe next time then. do you watch PLL? Maybe next Tuesday we can have another PLL date.

**Me: **yeah.

**Steph: **:( we miss you Joooooooo

**Heather: **Why don't we come to you? if that's ok with Shanes mom

**Leah: **YEAH! We'll still pay for the pizza and stuff.

**Steph: **yeah why not?

**Me: **No. Maybe next week or something. Shane's not feeling well and his mom said nobody should come over.

**Leah: **he isn't? he was fine in school… what's wrong with him?

**Me: **idk.

**Steph: **okay. how about this weekend? We can hang out at my house and sleepover and stuff.

**Heather: **yeah. we can have a big welcome back sleepover for you.

**Me: **okay.

**Me: **….what time would we be done tonight, if I did come over?

**Me: **nevermind.

**Leah: **it's a school night, so like ten.

**Me: **I guess I can come… for a couple hours….

**Steph: **I thought you said you weren't allowed?

**Me: **i lied… I'll be over at like 6:30 I have to take a bath first

**Heather: **u ok?

**Me: **yeah.

**Steph: **do you need a ride to leahs?

**Me: **no shane knows where it's at. I'll be over at 6:30. Bye.

**Leah: **Jo you don't have to come if you don't want to. we just missed you that's all

**Me: **I'm coming.

**Me: **can you guys just please promise me something?

**Leah: **ok?

**Heather: **yep.

**Steph: **totes.

**Me: **I didn't want to come over bc I don't look good right now. just don't judge me.

**Leah: **like we care what you look like. Im wearing sweats and a tshirt with no bra :p

**Steph: **and I just told you guys that I washed my hair. I'm gonna look like a lion.

**Heather: **I don't have any clean pjs so I'm gonna wear a onesie. Why would we judge you?

**Me: **okay. I'll be over at 6:30.

* * *

"I came on mine this morning and my boobs have been aching sooo bad." Leah shoves a black plastic fork in a box of low mein and shovels it into her mouth like a pig. "I've just been eating everything in sight. You name it, I've eaten it. I even ate the last slice of Hawaiian bread… plain. With nothing on it." She kicks her feet up, rests them on the coffee table and licks her lips. "I'm gonna gain like ten pounds… just today." She belches and the rest of us just laugh at her. _Maybe Shane's right about me needing to be with girlfriends. It does kind of feel good to have females to relate to. _"It was probably good that we didn't get pizza. I would've eaten the whole thing by myself. I don't know what it is, but my period makes me eat like a pig."

"Ugh. You're lucky you're able to eat while you're on yours. Everything makes me sick when I'm on mine, and my cramps get so bad…" Steph chews on a piece of her chicken and licks some sauce off her finger. "I have to take at least two days off school when I'm on mine… it's THAT bad."

"Go on the pill. Mine have been so much better ever since I got on the pill." Heather, like the weirdo she is, is eating plain white rice with soy sauce on it and nothing else. "I used to throw up and get really bad headaches with mine. My mom let me go on the pill and mine last like… three days tops now. And my boobs are never sore anymore." I spoon some chicken fried rice in my mouth and chew softly, with my lips together. "My mom always said that when your boobs ache, it means they're growing…"

"Oh my god, I hope that's true. I could use an extra cup size. I've been in a freaking B for forever!" Leah puts the empty low mein container on the coffee table and picks up her bottle of Dr. Pepper. "I'm giving my knockers until I turn eighteen to get into a C-cup. If they don't, I'm getting implants. I'll never be a Playboy model with little tiny B-cup boobs!"

"At least you can fit in a B. I'm trying to stuff what I've got into a high A-cup. I was gonna buy one of those bombshell bras, but you have to have something to push up! I don't have anything." Heather puts her hands on her own chest and squeezes the barely-there breasts. "I wouldn't even hate them that much if I at least had a butt. I don't have boobs or a butt. Curse my genes."

"Yeah, if I could transfer some of my ass to my chest…I'd be all set. Solid 32-B cup right here." Steph raises her hand. I spoon some more rice in my mouth and chew again. "And then you have Miss America over there, eating her rice and keeping her nose down." She tosses a couch pillow at me, knocking the rice to the back of my throat and making me cough. "Yeah… choke. Go head, choke. You and your hot body… choke." I pat myself on the chest and giggle, through my coughs. "How big ARE your boobs, Jo?"

"…Do I have to answer?" I swallow the last little bit of rice I had in my mouth and take a sip of my Mountain Dew. "My boobs don't count. Big boobs don't count if you're fat."

"YOU'RE TOTALLY NOT FAT!" Leah puts down her second container of low mein just to yell at me. "Jo, you're PERFECT. Perfect model body, right there. You're PERFECT. If I were gay, I'd totally bang you."

"Me too." Steph raises her hand.

"Me three." Heather chimes in.

"…Thanks?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and put down my carton of fried rice. They haven't asked about my face and why it's all bruised and I'm glad. They're very courteous. "No but seriously… if you guys HAD to be gay… and you HAD to be gay with one girl in school, who would it be?" I cross my legs and allow myself to loosen up a little. I used to ask Shane this question all the time and his answer was always "I'm never gonna be fucking gay." I think it's more acceptable to him, for a girl to be gay than a guy to be gay but for me? I don't judge. "If you HAD to be gay and you HAD to pick one girl from school to be gay with. And that includes doing all the lesbo things."

Leah swallows her food and opens up her mouth first. "I already said I'd be gay with you. You're hot, and I know you're clean. If I had to be gay, I'd be gay with one of you guys. Because I already know you guys wash properly and you guys aren't dirty. So I'd be gay with any of you guys… but sorry Heath and Steph, Jo's my first choice."

"Same as Leah, honestly. Same reasons, too. And I'd be gay with you first, Jo." Steph just nods.

"I agree with everything said." Heather chimes again.

"You guys are hot too, though. I mean… I'm average. If I had to be gay, I'd be gay with you guys too… or April, cause she's pretty." I shrug. "But you guys are…. hot…"

"I know I look good." Leah laughs. "I'm not conceited or anything, I just know I'm not ugly."

Heather speaks up. "Right. There are way uglier chicks out there than me. I don't think I'm the shit, but I know I'm not ugly."

"Right?" Steph nods again. "And you're way beyond average, Jo. More like… averagely… sexy. If I had a penis, you'd make it hard… that kind of thing."

"….But why though?" I'm blushing, needless to say. This must be what girls do when they hang out. We talk about who we'd be gay with, our periods and our bra sizes. "You guys are like… the only people that even think that. And I'm sure you're only saying that because I'm sitting right here in front of you. If you guys would rather be pretend gay with each other, you can say so. You don't have to fake like I'm hot or anything."

"We're all best friends, and we've all seen each other naked. Me, Leah and Stephanie, I mean." Heather starts. "It's just how it is. It's not a big deal and we don't sit here and stare at each other. But I have seen Leah's ass more times than I care to count and I've seen Steph's boobs enough that I could probably describe them to a T. We change in front of each other during cheer practice and we slap each other with wet towels. It sounds weird and it sounds incredibly gay, but if you can't act like a bunch of lesbians with your best friends, then you're really not best friends. "

"Right. And we don't lie to each other about anything. Best friends don't lie. So we're not lying when we say that you're a dime." Leah pats me on my back.

"…I'm your best friend?" _I think that's what she just said. I think you have girl best friends…_

"Yeah, you are. You're all of our best friend…" Leah sits up from her belly-down position and groans. "The only thing that separates us from you is that you don't really have our attitude… but if you hang around with us enough, you'll eventually get it." She shrugs.

"What kind of attitude?"

"…You kind of think you're ugly, Jo." Steph busts out into laughter. "And we don't think we're ugly. We know we're hot. You need to get that attitude. Know you're hot and embrace it. Know that just because you're a freshman, doesn't mean that you're ugly. Know that you're hot."

"But I'm… not?"

"You sure pulled Alex Karev like it was a habit." Heather rolls her eyes. "And you've got him whipped, too."

"But that doesn't mean that I look good. I like to think I have a nice personality."

"Which is another reason why I hate your guts." Leah sticks her tongue out at me. I wrinkle my brows. "You're pretty as hell and you're a nice person. You can't usually get both. You're either ugly and nice, or pretty and bitchy. Never both… except for you."

"Okay, if you guys are really my friends, then please explain it. Because I REALLY don't get it. I'm fat, with ratty hair and shitty green eyes. I don't find myself attractive… at all. Like… okay, I have big boobs… but those don't count if you're fat!"

"You're NOT fat!" Steph stands behind me and pushes me up out of the couch. "You got that hour-glass shape that every boy is always talking about. And your hair is worth more than my LIFE. It's all thick and long… like extensions… and your eyes are so pretty! You know how weird it is to find someone with hair as dark as yours and eyes as light as yours? It's rare."

"And you're super nice…" Heather sighs.

"Right, so if you're gonna hang with us, you have to have our attitude. We're the shit, Jo. Every guy wants us." Leah winks at me.

"No offense Leah, but a lot of people think you're a bitch. I don't want to be known as a bitch…"

"And a lot of people think you're a hot-head that can't control her temper." She shrugs. "What's the big deal? So a couple people think negatively of you. The boys in my Facebook inbox beg to differ." She stands up too, right next to Steph. "You're hot, Jo. But if you want to keep it to a 'I know I'm hot' minimum… you want to… keep it classy. Cover your boobs up, flaunt the big butt OCCASIONALLY." She motions for me to stand up. _She's giving you advice, and you'd better take it. Maybe this will help you get over your fear of having sex with Alex. _I stand up and watch everything Leah does. "It's okay to wear your jeans off your hips a little. Pull your shirt up just enough that your belly ring hangs out, but not too much that people think you're a slut." She pulls on my yoga pants and my t-shirt. She pulls my yoga pants down just a tad, and Steph gasps.

"What?!" I jump back a little bit at her reaction.

"Guys, she even has BACK dimples. Do you know how many SEXY points that is? Guys go WEAK over back dimples." She lifts my shirt up just a little. _Is she talking about the holes you have in your lower back? Ew those are so gross! _"And they're deep, too. Flaunt these. FLAUNT these."

"…Okay?" I scratch my head.

Leah picks my chin up. "And walk with your head up, for god's sake. You can't see the boys drooling if your head's down." She clears her throat. "So keep it classy. Show off the back dimples… cover your boobs but let yourself expose just a little bit of cleavage. Keep it classy, NEVER trashy." She pushes my stomach outwards. "And stick your ass out just a little bit. Stop slouching while you walk. It's okay to switch. You want to keep it just a little bit nasty too…. just to let them know that you could have them if you wanted them…. but you want Alex."

"But I couldn't have them…"

"You totally could. You could totally have any boy in the school if you wanted them." Heather pulls my hair out of my raggedy ponytail and shakes it for me. "And keep the hair messy. Messy hair means that you're carefree. You seriously never learned how to act like a girl before, have you?"

"Huh uh…" I shake my head. "I don't know how to be…sexy. Can you guys help me out a little bit?"

Steph starts pulling my t-shirt down and I eventually catch on that she wants me to take it off. I ease it over my head and just hope that they won't ask about the bruises on my back. They've done well with the ones on my face, so I don't think they'll ask about the ones on my back either. Naturally, I cower my hands over my chest and put my thumbnail in my mouth, concealing my cuts. I must admit that I'm a little bit uncomfortable, standing in front of them with my shirt off. "Note. If you tighten your bra straps, your boobs will bounce when you walk. Old trick I learned from my sister." She starts tightening my bra straps.

"Why do you have so many of these on your body?" Leah walks around to my back. _I knew they were gonna ask about the bruises._

"So many of what?" I play dumb.

"These brown dots. You have a shitload of them."

"They're beauty marks, Leah." Steph rolls her eyes.

"…Oh, my moles? I know, I have a lot of them… they're gross." I touch the one by my mouth. The girls at Franklin called it an STD… is that what it looks like? "They're mostly on my back… I have a couple on my neck and one on my face… and one on my butt… and on the inside of my thigh… they're everywhere."

"They're beauty marks, not moles. 'Cause they're not three dimensional, they're flat. They're beauty marks, not moles. I have them too." Heather keeps playing with my hair while Steph tightens my bra straps and Leah's adjusting my yoga pants. I can't tell if I like this or not. I think I do, because they're teaching me how to appear as feminine… but it's weird. Heather keeps talking, though. "My dad used to tell me what they mean. Mine are black, so mine mean that I'm strong. Yours are brown so it's supposed to mean that you're lucky. It's called Moleosophy, my dad said. My mom just told me that that's where the angels kissed me when I left heaven."

"…An angel kissed my ass… super." That makes me laugh, genuinely.

"Or Alex…" Steph moves her eyebrows up and down.

"That works too." I shrug. "Hey Heather… I was over his house the other day, and Aaron was in his room." I wink at her. "He doesn't talk to me much… but I could still talk to him, if you want. I'll ask if he's into freshmen…"

"Don't make me sound desperate."

"He's a little bit weird… Alex calls him 'the eleven-year-old-baby.' Don't know why, haven't asked… He's weird though."

"They'll get along perfectly, then." Leah laughs. "…So are you just gonna keep us waiting, or are you really not gonna tell us, Jo?"

"Tell you what?"

"…What was it like? The sex…"

"…We didn't have sex yet."

"Then what the HELL is up with your back?!" Steph's eyes get really wide. "We all just assumed… I mean, we all heard that Karev kinda likes it rough, so we assumed…"

"…Oh." _Mrs. Who told you not to lie about it. She said coming to terms with it is talking about it. But did she mean that I have to tell everyone? I'm not exactly proud about it. But they said they're my best friends, and I'm not in this position to pass up best friends… _"Nah, the bruises aren't from sex… but.." I move my hair out of my face, which annoys Heather. "…You guys wanna know how I was able to come back and live with Shane?"

"I thought you just got adopted. He's been saying that his mom planned on adopting you…" Leah hands me my shirt back once Steph finishes tightening my bra.

"No."

"Oh… then why?"

"…We're having fun, okay? Fun, fun, fun! And we're gonna keep having fun…" I sigh. "So no questions, and no pity party for Jo, alright?" They all nod. "I um… I had se…I was _raped_. By my foster brother…"

* * *

**A/N: **_Quick question: If I were to write more Jolex fanfiction, would you guys read it? Lol. I've just been coming up with all these ideas that I'd like to write about and I'm so eager to get back to what I'm comfortable in... which is writing more mature things than teenage angst. I have a pretty good idea that I'd like to flesh out eventually, and I was just wondering if you guys would be interested in reading a story that's not necessarily high school/teenaged. I was thinking something along the lines of both Jo and Alex being residents/attendings already. But if you guys like high school/teenaged fics, I'll continue writing more of these kinds. I just want to go older and get Alex's point of view in with my next Jolex story.__  
_

_So would you guys like to read about them being older after I finish this story off? Thanks :)_


	30. Broken Promises

"So after last night, would you consider your friends as another support system?" Today is different than any other session I've ever been in. Today, we're sitting at a table across from one another and the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle are scattered in front of us. She's helping me build the puzzle while she takes notes here and there. She says that the puzzle is just to make sure I keep my hands out of my mouth because biting your fingernails is a nasty indicator of anxiety issues and she wants to teach me how to cope in different ways. I have to sit through an hour long session without biting my fingernails. "You said it went ideally. You told them, you let them share a moment of pity for you and that was it. They didn't harp on it, they didn't keep asking you about it. So would you say that they're supportive?"

"…Yeah." I put two pieces of the puzzle together. I think it's supposed to be dolphins when it's all put together, but so far all we have done is a small mess of blue. "It wasn't weird or anything. I told them about it, and of course they had questions. But they weren't invasive questions. They mostly just wanted to know if I was going to be okay. "And they apologized. And they hugged me. And that was really it." I stare at the puzzle and just let my mind wonder off a little bit, back to last night over Leah's. "They kept asking me if I wanted them to go beat him up and stuff like that. And then they asked me how they could cheer me up…. so then we danced around in Leah's basement to 90s music because that always makes me happy."

She gasps. "90s music?" You know how sometimes, when you tell somebody something, you can tell if they care or not? I'm really good at that. And she sounds like she actually cares. "What's your favorite 90s song?"

"…Anything by Sheryl Crow, mostly." I jam another puzzle piece to a fit and shake my foot. "I think the 80s were my grandma's favorite time period, because I grew up listening to a lot of 80s stuff. 80s and 90s are my favorites."

"How do you feel about 'If It Makes You Happy'?" She asks.

"…I love that song. It's the first one of her songs that I learned all the lyrics to when I was younger. It came out the year before I born, but I knew all the words by the time I was three." I can't help but crack a smile. I bob my head just a little. "If it makes you happy… it can't be that bad." I sing a little before I shut up.

"If it makes you happy… then why the hell are you so sad?" Mrs. Who sings along with me, which honestly shows me that I can actually sort of… like her. "So how do you feel about going back to your old school? Are you nervous to make the switch back?"

"No. I'm excited." I sigh. "This is fun…. Can all of my sessions be like this?"

"Doing puzzles? Sure. If it keeps your fingers out of your mouth, we can do a puzzle all the time." She puts down a puzzle piece and writes in the notebook. "But I think you know that we have to start talking about heavier things. It's nice to have a little fun, but we have a mission here, yes? I tell you what… if we get through everything I want to talk to you about today, I'll let you go through my iPod. Deal?"

"Deal. What do you want to talk about?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and look up at her.

"…We can start by talking about Monday. When the Myers' came over to the house to talk to you about running away. Can you tell me about that?"

I cross my legs and rest my back against the cushioned padding of the chair. I know I'm not supposed to, but I put down the puzzle piece and gnaw at the skin around my thumbnail while I think and her question rings in the back of my head. The hand that doesn't have its fingers in my mouth quietly taps along the wood of the chair. She leans forward, notebook and pen in her hand and repeats the question as if I neglected to hear her the first time she asked it. "Can you tell me about what happened on Monday? What you remember of it, anyway?" She hands me a wad of tissues just in case I need them. I take them out of her hand and bawl them up in my own. "It doesn't have to be word for word, and you don't have to tell me every single detail. You can take a minute to think if you need to…"

I close my eyes and tilt my head backwards. "I don't remember anything from Monday." I lie. She told me that all the visits aren't going to be about what happened to me and I'm starting to think that she might have lied. Granted, I just got here about ten minutes ago, but I already can't stand to talk about it. How do we go from singing to talking about this stuff? "Next question." I don't know why she thinks that forcing me to think about and relive the things that went down in the Myers house is a good idea.

"Okay…if you can't tell me about Monday, then tell me about Saturday night/Sunday morning. When you decided to run away." She writes something in the notebook.

"I don't remember that either." I lie again.

"Why'd you tell me on Monday that you kept thinking about the second time, then?" She taps her pen against her notebook and I shrug my shoulders. She's really stirring up some unwanted feelings and I'm just increasingly uncomfortable. I pull my legs up and sit with my knees in my chest in the chair. "I need you to either tell me about Monday or tell me about the second time it happened. You get no more free passes, Josephine. I need you to tell me about one or the other. Tell me about Monday, or tell me about the second time it happened…"

"Third." I mumble.

"Third?" Her voice raises a pitch.

"It was the third time, when I ran away..." _Well third… if him feeling me up in the kitchen counts. There wasn't any real, actual penetration there, but it was still unwanted… so that counts, doesn't it? I don't know. _All of a sudden, my breathing starts to get heavier. "I don't wanna talk." I clasp my hand over my chest and feel my heart beating three thousand times too fast. "…Do…do you have a fan? I need a fan…" I start fanning myself with my hand. My hair is sticking to my forehead because I'm sweating. "Can we talk about something else?"

"You're having an anxiety attack, honey… it's okay." She hands me more tissues so I can wipe myself off. "Just calm down and think about something small, okay? Think about something small. Like… can you remember what you were wearing when you ran away?" I shake my head. "Okay. Close your eyes and relax yourself. Think about something totally irrelevant to what we were just saying. Calm yourself down… think about what you ate for dinner last night, or what color your socks were yesterday. Think about something different until you calm down." I just keep shaking my head. I can't just switch my mind away from what we were just talking about. My brain doesn't work that way. I can't stop thinking about it now…

_His hands are wrapped around my neck, his nails digging deeper and deeper into my flesh so I can't scream. I put one of my hands on the bridge of his noise and push his face away from me. I feel so disgusting… so…worthless. He takes one hand away from my throat and pushes the hand I put on his face away. Everything inside of me is telling me to just let it happen, because once he gets in the swing of things, it doesn't take very long for him to finish. But there's a part of me…and I don't know how dominant that part is, but part of me is telling me to just…get him off me. And run, like hell. From underneath the weight of his pelvis, I lift my leg up and try to shove my bare foot inside his gut. I'm not letting him do this to me. I'm not just going to sit here and let it happen._

_When he recovers from the kick in his gut, his fist collides with the bridge of my nose. Immediately, I feel blood drip down the back of my head and collect beside my ears. I feel a lot of pressure in my head and the blood is rushing down my cheeks too. I think it's broken… I think he broke it._

_While I'm writhing in pain at the possibility of a broken nose, he lifts up and starts throwing my pillows on the floor. "Your bed is too noisy for what I have planned for you." I know your nose hurts, but you really have to make a break for it if you're gonna get out of here. With my t-shirt and my panties still on, I climb quickly out of the bed but he pulls me back by my long hair. "Sit down." He grunts as he swings his leg back and kicks me hard, in my stomach and slams me against the wall. Oh god… I can't feel my stomach. I can't breathe. I think he knocked the wind out of my body. He lies back on top of me and puts his hands around my neck. "If you move… I will kill you… do you hear me?"_

_With his hands still wrapped around my neck, I reach up with my hands and push him back by his head. "N…No, get off…" I mumble through the breaths I'm struggling to take. I do my best to curl my body up in a ball so I can wiggle free from underneath of him. Think fast… think fast… elbows. I dig my elbows into the folds of his arms and that's enough to get him off. "I swear to god I'll fucking scream…" _

_He grabs my arms and pushes me back down on the floor, asserting himself between my legs again. My whole body just tenses and locks up when I actually feel it go inside this time. YOU GET HIM OFF. GET HIM OFF. I lean up and bite down hard, deep on his shoulder. In the second it takes for him to react to my teeth in his flesh, I take my opportunity to bawl my fist up and really, take it to him. I'm not letting this happen again. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" Is the only thing that comes out of my mouth in a deafening scream, before he regroups and puts his hands back around my throat. I literally can't breathe… I think he's killing me._

"I bit him." I nod my head when I finally come back to my senses. "In his shoulder… and I hit him in his face." I hold my head in my hand. "And I promised myself something…"

"And what'd you promise yourself, Jo?"

"…That nobody's ever going to do that to me again."

* * *

"Your face looks better today. Have you been putting that stuff on your lip?" She slides a little cup full of ketchup across the table at me and stirs her raspberry iced tea with her straw. I tap on the bottom of the ketchup bowl to put a small pile of it on my plate, next to my French fries. Red Robin has good hamburgers, but my favorite part is undeniably the French fries. I could live off their French fries. I unravel my fork, knife and spoon and start cutting through my hamburger with my knife. "…I have a couple things I'd like to talk to you about, Josie." She puts her fork back down next to her plate and I stop cutting my burger to just look at her. _I just spent the last hour sitting in a room, talking to my shrink. I'm tired of talking for the day. My brain is just exhausted. _"For starters… I guess I should ask you if you like this. Living with us, I mean. Are you comfortable? Because if you're not, I can contact someone to maybe help get you into another foster home."

"No!" I start coughing, choking on my chewed up French fry. "'Scuse me…" I wipe my mouth with my napkin. "…No more foster homes. No more. I want to stay here. I like it here. Please no more foster homes." I look down at my plate, suddenly not hungry anymore. "I wanna stay, I do." I pick up another French fry and pick it apart. "I just really don't want to get too comfortable. It seems like every time I get comfortable, something happens. I don't want to run the risk…"

"Josie, nobody is gonna take you away from me again." I can tell by the look on her face that she's sorry. About everything. "I promise that I won't let anybody take you away. You'll be here with us until you're old enough to be on your own." She eats one of her own French fries. "So now that we have that established, I can talk to you about everything else." I nod. "Okay, so I scheduled you an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I just want to make sure everything is okay. I want you to get checked out. I want them to look at all your bumps and bruises and everything down there, too. I want to make sure you're healthy." I respond by taking a bite of my hamburger. "And the school called me today, and they said that your transcripts are back and you can start back on tomorrow, but I want you to stay home for the rest of the week. You'll go back to school on Monday." I just keep chewing on my mouthful of ground beef. "And on Friday, the two of us have a meeting downtown at the Magisterial Office. The DA just wants to go over all the charges and we'll get a court date set up. We discussed some things over the phone this morning, but he wants to go over things with you in person."

"…What'd you discuss?" I shovel the last little corner of my burger in my mouth and take a sip of my soda.

"…The Myers' are denying the charges. Jason's saying that it was consensual, so the chances of the case going to a higher court than the district court are pretty high."

"…What the hell does that mean?" I put down the French fry I just picked up and bite my lip. I think I know exactly what this means. "…So since I'm telling the truth about how it happened, and he's lying and saying that I wanted it, it's basically a he said-she said case… isn't it?" Underneath the table, my hands curl up into fists and my temperature starts rising. "Why would I lie? Why would I lie and say that he raped me if he didn't?"

"Baby, I know you're not lying. I know you're not. And we're going to do whatever we need to do to make sure he pays for this. We're going to make sure he does. But it's Wednesday now and you're not going to the doctors until Thursday."

"What does that have to do with ANYTHING? He still did it."

"I'm saying… that if the doctors administered a rape kit tomorrow… all evidence of it would be gone because it's been since last Saturday… you get that?"

"…So they're gonna think I'm lying." I look down at my plate of food and take a couple deep breaths. "Because I can't prove it, because the evidence is all gone, they're gonna think I'm lying. This is just fucking… perfect." I quickly wipe away a tear that just fell. "Sorry."

"Hey… Hey, Josie it's okay." She reaches across the table and holds my hand. "Look at me, sweetie… look at me." I look up at her. "I'm not going to let him get away with it. I know that he did this to you… and I know that you're not lying to me. I'm not going to let him get away with it."

"What can you do? Basically, I have to go convince some random stranger that I'm not lying and whatever I say is one hundred percent true. How am I supposed to do that if I can't even… I can't even remember details about those nights. I… I've tried so hard to forget them and I did… I forgot them. But now I have to dig it all back up, for something that MIGHT help punish him? What can you do about it? What can anyone do about it?"

"Jo, look at me again." I do. "Everything you're saying is true. Every last thing you're saying is completely true. But please believe me when I tell you that he is NOT going to get away with it. I will… I will make sure that little boy pays HELL for what he did to you. If I have to take matters into my own hands, I will. I know what he did to you. And I'm not gonna let you live for the rest of your life, knowing that he did what he did to you and he got off for it. I promise you that he's not going to get away with this… I promise."

"…Why are you doing this?" I keep wiping away tears. "Why is anybody doing this for me? I don't get it…"

"…Because I love you, Jo. I love you just like you came from me. I love you like I love my boys… maybe more than I love them because you're my girl and they're just gross boys." I reluctantly giggle at that. "I know you don't think of me as your mother, and that's fine because I'm not trying to replace your gram in any way. But you're my girl. And I'm gonna do whatever I need to do to protect you. Just like I protect my Shane, my Nicholas and my Matthew. I'm gonna protect you too." She rubs her thumb along my knuckles. "Plus, it's about time I get some more estrogen in my house. I've had enough testosterone for one lifetime."

I laugh at that. "…I… I know I have a crappy way of showing it, but I really do love you guys too. I just… don't really…" I look away from her again. "What I think of family and what you think of family are two totally different things. I… just don't really know how to express that."

"I know you don't, baby. I know you don't." She pats my hand. "And that's okay. But I don't want you to worry about anything as long as you're with me. I want you to be as normal as possible again. I want you to be the Jo that came over to dinner unannounced, that used to beg me to braid her hair, and let me hold her while she slept. I want you to be that again. You remember that? The first time your gram brought you over to play with Shane? And Shane never took naps, so he had no idea what you were talking about when you said you wanted to take a nap."

I crack a smile. "Yeah. I fell asleep on the couch." _I guess I really do go back with Miss Kelly… _"I remember… I remember being three years old, with a pink pacifier in my mouth and crawling up right in your lap to fall asleep while you played with my pig tails. And Shane was mad at me for a week because I was 'stealing' his mommy."

"That's what I'm talking about." She smiles and nods her head. "I want you to be like that again."

"…I'm really trying."

* * *

**Wed, Nov 5, 2013**

**3:22 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Stephanie: **Jo gurl where are you at?

**3:25 p.m.**

**Me: **at home. why? i just got out of the shower that's all. i just got home actually. i had to run some errands with shanes mom today. is everything cool?

**3:26 p.m.**

**Steph: **GET ON FACEBOOK NOW.

**Me: **why whats wrong?

**Me: **my phone internet is off so i can't. but if its important, ill get on my laptop. is it bad?

**Steph: **GET ON FACEBOOK JO. YOU HAVE TO.

**Me: **omg ok. send me screenshots though? it might take a minute my laptop is slow lol

**Steph: **just get on facebook pls. get on facebook.

**Me: **ok i'm hooking my laptop up right now. whats this about?

**3:30 p.m.**

**New iMessage**

**Heather: **So like did u and Alex break it off?

**Me: **no… why?

**3:31 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Steph: **are you on facebook yet? Go to Lucy Fields' profile and look at her recent images

**Me: **k.

I cross my legs in my towel and log into my Facebook on my laptop. I ignore the new messages, the new friend requests and the notifications I have and type "Lucy Fields" into the search bar. She pops up immediately, and we have 121 mutual friends. I click on her profile. I don't even have to click on her recent images to see it. I scroll down and it's right there on her timeline. I double click on the picture to make it bigger. While it's loading, I read the caption. "Missing you more and more each day /3 -with Alex Karev." My eyes widen and a smile creeps across my lips. It's a picture of her and Alex lying in bed with each other and they're both clearly naked. It doesn't really show much, but it's pretty much obvious that they're naked. I put my laptop down and pick my phone back up.

**3:37 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **Wtffffff….

**Steph: **I TOLD YOU

**Me: **wtf? Dude wtfffffff

**Steph: **I told leah and heather both that you were gonna snap

**Me: **do you happen to have lucy's number?

**Steph: **No. I don't like that bitch lol

**Me: **k i'll talk to you later. bbl.

I put my phone back down and log out of my Facebook. I'm beyond irritated right now. First of all, I haven't spoken to Alex in two whole days. I texted him yesterday but I didn't get a reply because he was at football. I haven't spoken to him in TWO days… TWO days. Second of all, WHY is she tagging my boyfriend in pictures and stuff on Facebook? I secure my towel against my body and pick my phone back up so I can call him. He better answer his goddamn phone.

"…Hello?" He answers on the fourth ring.

"What's Lucy's number? I know you still have it, so don't even think about lying and saying you don't. Tell me her number, Alex. Screw the fact that you've been ignoring me for the last two days. Screw the fact that I haven't talked to you in two days. Screw all of that. What's Lucy's number?"

"…If this is about the picture, then I'm hanging up on you. It's just a picture."

"No, Alex it's not just a picture! I'm feeling disrespected! I had a long freaking day and I come home, log on Facebook and see that? No, it's not just a picture. Give me her number and I'm not kidding. If you won't put a stop to it, I will. Now give me her damn number."

"What do you mean you had a long day? Are you okay?"

"DON'T TRY TO CHANGE THE SUBJECT."

"I'm not, I'm just asking you a question. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine! Now what's her number?! I don't care if you go after Jason or whatever… WHAT. IS. LUCY'S. NUMBER?"

"878-555-8789."

"Thank you! I'm texting her. I'll be nice… I'll do whatever you want. But she's got to stop. I'm not kidding around with her anymore. She's not gonna keep making me look like a fool."

"….You don't have to be nice."

"Oh, now I don't? But just the other day, you were sticking up for her? You're full of shit, Alex."

"…I wasn't exactly nice to Jason, so…"

"…You what?"

"I gotta go, okay? I'll call you later… or tomorrow or whatever."

"NO, ALEX!" And all of a sudden, there's nothing but a dial tone in my ear….


	31. Too Much Information

"Take everything from the waist down off, hon. I don't need you to take off your shirt, but if you will just unstrap your bra for me, that'd be good." _Did I just hear her right? Did she say to take everything from my waist down, off? _Her long, cream colored arms outstretch and hand me a white, papery cloth and I just look at it before I take it. This thing is so thin… what is it really going to cover up? I really don't know about this… "I'm gonna run and grab a couple things from the supply room. When I get back, we can get started." She's young, with long blonde hair and blue eyes. I can tell she's not naturally blonde because her roots are coming through. I don't know if her being young freaks me out or comforts me. I mean, I'm happy with the fact that she's at least a woman. I don't know if I'd feel better or worse if she were older. With not another word to me, she disappears from the cramped up exam room and shuts the door behind her.

_Don't even think about what you're about to do. If you don't think about it, it won't be so bad. Just do it. Every woman does it. Every…woman…does it. _With shaky, trembling fingers, I unbutton my jeans and pull them down around my ankles. I step out of them and fold them neatly then throw them on an empty chair beside the exam bed. I pull down my fresh pair of underwear too. Miss Kelly recommended that I take a shower before I come here, so I did. My underwear are very clean from having just changed them, but I still tuck them away underneath my jeans so the doctor won't see them. As if me being naked in a doctor's office isn't enough, there's a body-length mirror right in front of me. I catch a glimpse of myself. My baggy grey t-shirt covers up my privates, but from the sideways angle I'm standing at, I can see where I had bruises at on my thighs. They're fading but the purpleness is still there.

Before I wrap the paper cloth around my waist, I unhook my bra from the back like she asked me to. I use the step-stool to sit on the exam table and finally drape the cloth across my naked bottom half. _I should've done a better job shaving down there. _I know that this is the woman's job… to sit here and look at vaginas all day. But I can't help but feel self-conscious about mine. I've been shaving down there since I was thirteen, but I don't get any…action so I usually just slack off and do a half-assed job at shaving. Now I'm starting to really wish I had taken my time and gotten every piece of hair. Either that, or I shouldn't have shaved at all. I think I'm the only freshman that shaves down there anyway. I mean, it's not like I go around asking people if they shave down there or not. But I'm assuming that not everybody has a sick obsession with not having body hair, like I do. The only part of my body I don't shave is my arms and that's how I like it. I don't like body hair…at all.

_Your legs are dry. You remembered to shave yourself, but you couldn't remember to put on lotion when you got out of the shower? Your legs are dry. All the doctor's going to feel is dry, scaly legs and she's gonna think you're gross. At least you smell fresh, though. _While I sit here waiting for the doctor to come back in, I find myself picking at the light purple polish that's on my fingernails. Mrs. Who suggested that I paint them in order to keep them out of my mouth so much. Once I start thinking about Mrs. Who, I stop picking the nail polish off. I sigh and loo around the room. Across from me is a sink that has water dripping out of the faucet. Above the sink is a mirror, and next to the mirror is a soap dispenser. Above the soap dispenser is a glove dispenser. Aligning the walls are tons of posters of "The Female Reproductive System", "Good Vaginal Health" and "Know The Signs of an STD." _Seriously? What have I gotten myself into? All women do it, but are all women sixteen when they first go through it? I can't do this. _

A series of three soft knocks sound on the door and it opens up shortly after. The doctor walks back through the door with a bunch of packages in her hands. She puts them down on the small table near a shelf of pamphlets and goes immediately over to the sink to wash her hands. "Like I said earlier, I'm Dr. Douglas and I'll be taking care of you today." She wipes her hands with paper towels and pulls on a pair of gloves. "Since I don't know much about you yet, we can start off with a few questions." She gives me a warm smile which doesn't settle me down at all. "First, I need you to lie back and put your right hand over your head… just relax for me." _How in the hell am I supposed to relax when a stranger is looking at me naked? _I lie back against the table and lift my arm up like she asked. Like it's nothing to her, she slips her hand up my t-shirt and starts feeling me up. _No frickin way… _"How old were you when you started your menstrual?"

_Is she seriously asking me about my period while her hand is on my boob?! _"Uh… Eleven… I was eleven." I uncomfortably babble out my response. Her hand moves to my other boob and my eyes just… widen. I'm glad she's not really looking at my face as much as she's looking at the way her hands are moving underneath my shirt. _Okay, enough with the pushing! That kind of hurts! _

"Just feeling for any lumps… anything abnormal…" She busily muses through her explanation and keeps rubbing on my BOOB. "You can sit up now, honey." She takes her hands out from under my shirt finally and I sit straight up, struggling to buckle my bra back together through the cloth of my shirt. "So you've been menstruating for about five years… and how are your periods? Are they light? Heavy? Regular? Irregular? How long do they last?"

"…Lightish…" I shift my jaw from left to right and back to left again. "…The first day is kind of heavy but the rest of the days are light. They last like… four days, maybe three. And… I guess they're regular. They come every month…" I start reading one of the STD posters purely out of embarrassment.

"Right. And are you sexually active?" She takes off her gloves and picks up a clipboard and a pen. _What does that even mean? Is she asking me if I've had sex before or if I'm currently having sex or what? Does being raped count? I'm confused…_

"No?" I can't hide the questioning tone of my voice.

"So you're a virgin, honey?" She looks kind of confused and starts running her fingers through the papers she's signing, like she's looking for something.

"Oh… no." I shake my head and look down at my arms. The skin on my arms is soft, pale and quiet. The cuts on my left wrist are loud. Screaming, bright shades of red from healing. One in particular screaming a shade of bruising purple from my latest escapade of last night. I turn my wrist inwards to hide them and clear my throat. "I'm not a virgin."

"Okay. And how many sex partners have you had? A rough estimate… and oral sex counts."

"…One." I bite my lip. "…Err two." I wrinkle my eyebrow. "Two…"

"And they were both penetration? Actual intercourse? Or were they oral? Both oral?"

"…Both…" I start biting on my bottom lip pretty hard. "Do you um…" I pick up a lock of my hair and stick it in my mouth. "…They were both intercourse." I just completely nix the fact that I wanted to ask her if she counts rape as actual sex. I'm so scared to be here anymore. I just don't want to be here.

"Have you any idea how many times you've had sex? More than ten times? Less than ten times?"

"Just three times."

"Okay. And you were protected all three times? Condoms at all?" Ashamed, I shake my head. "All three times were unprotected?" I nod. "When's the last time you've had sex?" I can't talk about this anymore. I'm going to burst out into tears if I have to keep talking about this. So, lying, I just shrug my shoulders. "Any chance you could be pregnant right now, hon?"

_Oh god. I never… OH MY GOD. _I press my two fingers to my temple and rub it, as I feel a headache coming on. _He refused to put a condom on. We weren't protected… what if I am?! WHAT IF I'M PREGNANT?! _"…I don't know…" My breath catches in my throat and I choke, just for a moment. I cover my mouth during my soft coughing spell and try to refrain from crying. "…Can you… can you check? Or something? I peed in the cup…" I ask her. I can tell she thinks I'm a little bit weird, just by the way she's looking at me. _Don't look at me like that. I have a legit reason to freak out right now. _"I…. I was…" I shake my head. "The last two times… I was…" I whisper this next part. "_Raped_."

"That's what your chart says." She gives me that same, warm, comforting smile again. "That's why you're here, sweetie. I'm going to check you for everything. STDs, STIs, pregnancy, infections… I'm going to take care of all of that." She puts her hand on my knee. "It's just my protocol to ask you those questions. Our lab tech is probably running the pregnancy test right now and I'll have those results for you very soon."

"…Okay." I calm down just a little bit and push the whole "pregnancy" thought out of my head. I'm just not gonna worry about that until I have to. "…Are you the person I would talk to about maybe… getting birth control pills or something? If I'm not pregnant…"

"Yes, of course. I can get you started on birth control pills today, if you're interested." She puts the clipboard down and pulls on another pair of gloves. She pulls something on the side of the exam table and pulls up two stirrups on each side. _You cannot be serious. I have to put my feet in those? _"Slide your bottom all the way down to the edge of the table and rest your feet in the cups here, honey." She tightens the stirrups and grabs a tube of something. I feel my eyebrow raise up just a little like it always does when I'm trying to find a way to get out of something like this. _Seriously? _"You're gonna be uncomfortable for a moment, but I promise this won't hurt. I'm just gonna run a cotton swab in there…. okay?"

_No, not okay. Do I have a choice, though? You're asking me if I'm okay with you swabbing the inside of my CROTCH with a cotton swab? Of course I'm not okay with that! But something tells me that even if I did tell you that I'm NOT okay with it, you'd do it any- _As a mere reaction, my jaw just drops all of a sudden. I WASN'T EXPECTING IT TO HAPPEN SO QUICK! SHE COULD'VE WARNED ME! Okay, she's right. It doesn't hurt, but wow, holy SURPRISE? She could've hit me with a warning or something before she just stuck it in there! _This is uncalled for…._

They couldn't have just put me to sleep for this?

* * *

"It was completely uncalled for. I walked out of that place with a brown paper bag and a totally new outlook on life. The whole thing just made me want to… kick a baby and kiss a spider… if that makes any sense?" I pick my phone up for the millionth time in the last ten minutes and check it. Still nothing. I texted him two hours ago and he hasn't replied. "I thought I was gonna die with the Q-Tip up there… no, I almost passed completely out when the bitch had the nerve to stick that metal thing in there! ….Like what the hell, man? I didn't sign up for that…" Heather's face is so red from laughing so hard. Steph's holding her stomach and Leah's literally crying. "Stop laughing at me guys. It's totally not funny. That was so disturbing…"

"It's hilarious, Jo. It's hilarious. You said you wanted to kiss a spider. I'm dying…" Leah keeps wiping her tears. "Funny because that's exactly how I felt after my first lady doctor visit. Except it was awkward for her to touch my boobs because I don't have any."

"SHE SQUEEZED MINE!" I run my hands through my hair, hold my head and shake it. "It wasn't right…. it wasn't right. THAT WASN'T RIGHT." I let out a little laugh at myself too. "I was so uncomfortable. I can't do that again. I'm… I wasn't ready for that. There's something about that, that isn't right. It's not right… It's one thing to put a Q-Tip in there, but METAL?!" I keep shaking my head. "THEN SHE CRANKED THE METAL THING OPEN AND SCRAPED ANOTHER Q-TIP IN THERE! Man… oh man…"

"Did she at least hold the metal before the stuck it up there? My doctor holds the metal so it's not all cold when it goes in." Through laughter, Steph asks.

"NO IT WAS FREEZING! I WAS GONNA KICK HER IN HER TEETH!" I hold back some serious laughter. "One minute, she was asking me what grade I was in and what sports I play, then the next minute it was like SHAZAM! METAL IN THE CROTCH! Like damn… you could at least take me to dinner first?"

"Shut up, Jo." Heather keeps cracking up. "You're a mess…"

"I really am! I wanted so bad to be like… bitch, get out of here. Like what's wrong with you? I just… I don't get that." I shudder. "Then she's all cheerful about it! She leaves the room to get me my birth control pills and condoms, and when she comes back she's all… ALL TESTS CAME BACK NEGATIVE! And I'm just like… dude, you just violated the hell out of me. I was really ready to square off and fight her."

"Chill… she's not Lucy. Save all the anger for her." Leah winks at me.

"…Don't get me started on her." I close my eyes and take a mental deep breath. "I will kill that hoe. Like… I'll just kill her. Period." I wave my hand at Leah. "I'm not even gonna rant about her."

"She's a hoe. Who posts a naked picture on FACEBOOK of yourself and somebody else's man?" Steph squints her eyes.

"If it were Shane, and she posted a picture of him butt naked in bed with her, I'd kill her. There would be no words, just fists flying. I don't know how you're staying calm about it." Leah offers me a high-five but I don't take it.

"I'm not calm. I flipped the fuck out last night. I made Alex give me her number and I flipped on her. Here. Read the texts…" I pick my phone back up and tap into my messages. The three of them crowd around me to read them over my shoulder. "It starts…here." I scroll up to the top and show them.

**Wed, Nov 5, 2013**

**4:30 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Me: **so what's your issue here?

**4:44 p.m.**

**Lucy: **Who is This?

**4:45 p.m.**

**Me: **alex's girlfriend. now wtf is your problem?

**Lucy: **lol what's YOUR problem?

**Me: **well it seems like i got what you want, so no problems here lol.

**Lucy: **lol ok

**Me: **okay well since there are no problems between us, STOP texting my boyfriend's phone, stop putting pictures of him on facebook. just STOP. i'm being nice about it this time. so i'll let you go now.

**Lucy: **who the fuck do you think you are? lol your just some whiny ass freshman. you will never compare to what me and alex used to be so please just save yourself all the embarrassment lol your nothing but my replacement. hows it feel to be a rebound girl? :)

**Me: **it feels pretty damn good to be your replacement haha. i mean his hand? i hold that. his lips? i kiss those. his girlfriend? i am that. so it feels pretty damn good.

**Lucy: **his dick? i sucked that lol

**Me: **& i'm supposed to care? lmao bye

**Lucy: **just thought i should let you know ;) and every time you kiss him, guess what part of me you're tasting?

**Me: **lol at how i could've been fucked him if i wanted to. i'm just not a hoe. wish i could speak for you.

**Lucy: **everybody knows your afraid to even kiss him so your argument is invalid. good try though!

**Me: **sorry that i have respect for myself lol. a group of boys can't sit around & talk about how they FUCKED ME. can't say the same for you. you rode the whole football team and sucked off the basketball team. & youre like sixteen. your mom must be so proud :-)

**Lucy: **at least i have a mom that gives a shit about what i do. you could kill yourself & nobody would give a shit about you. you're a freshman, when did you grow balls? youll never be to alex what i am to him. can you tell me how he likes to fuck? no bitch you don't even know his birthday lol. come at me when you can tell me his fav. food. better yet, come at me when your parents give a fuck if you live or die

**Me: **okaaaay.

**Lucy: **aw can't handle the truth?

**Me: **no. im just not gonna waste my energy arguing with you when all my energy can be put into slapping the fuck outta you, tbh. please don't think i'm letting you get away with saying some disrespectful shit like that. i'm beating your ass whenever i see you, just know that.

**Lucy: **you think that just bc you beat up some big bitch from Franklin you're the shit

**Me: **yep. i'll see you when i see you though. keep your head up & your eyes open.

"Are you really fighting her?" Steph turns and looks me dead in my face.

"Yeah. I wouldn't say I'm gonna do something if I'm not going to. When I see her, I'm fighting her. I don't care where it's at. I could see her in church, and I'd beat her ass… in the name of the Lord." I lock my phone back up and throw it to the side. "She went overboard with the disrespect, so I'm not gonna just let it go. I'd be crazy to let it go."

"MAKE SURE I'M THERE WHEN YOU DO IT, OKAY?!" Leah grabs me by my shoulders. "Okay?!"

"I want to record it." Heather says.

"…You gotta learn how to argue though." Steph's still hung up on the texts. "She roasted you."

"I'll be the first to admit that I'm not a good arguer. I'm not good with arguing and hurting people's feelings." I shrug. "But that doesn't mean she can't mess around and get her ass beat. That was overly disrespectful… what she said about me not having a mom. I'm not just gonna let her get away with that. I might lose the fight, but I'm still hitting her. You don't say some disrespectful shit like that and get away with it." I clear my throat. "And I cussed Alex out too. Like, how the hell does this bitch know my business? The only way she knows about me is if he told her… and he doesn't get to tell people about me. I cussed him out too… and I might punch him in his chin too, just because."

"…What'd he say about it?"

"He's been ignoring me since yesterday." I roll my eyes at just remembering that fact.

"But doesn't it kind of bother you that she actually… had sex with Alex and you didn't? Doesn't that kind of make you mad?" For the first time in a while, Heather is very serious when she's asking me a question. "I just feel like she shouldn't be able to hold that over your head."

"No, what pisses me off is how he tells everybody that I'm afraid to do it when he knows good and well that I'm NOT afraid, I'm just not ready." Just talking about it is making my blood boil. "There's a fucking difference. Being scared means that I literally don't want to, and I'm SCARED to. I'm not ready. I don't want to do it and throw up on him, or cry afterwards. I'm not ready for that. I want to. I want to have sex with him SO bad but I'm not ready, and that's that. It doesn't piss me off at all how she can go around and brag and say that she's done it with my boyfriend. I don't care about that. What REALLY pisses me off is how everyone thinks it's because I'm afraid."

"…So you're NOT afraid to have sex with Alex?" Leah asks.

"NO!" I throw my hands up in the air. "I'm not scared! I'm just worried that if I jump into it, I'll ruin it. I'm NOT ready. I… I freak out a little bit if Shane accidentally touches me through the night while we're sleeping! I have panic attacks when I think about it. I cry every time I see a bruise on my body in the mirror. I'm not ready to lie down and have sex with him. I WANT to, but I'm not ready. If I have sex right now, I already know that it's gonna end with me crying or throwing up all over the place… why would I risk that, just for bragging rights?"

"Then why don't you just tell him that?" Steph seems like she's just really not getting it. "That you want to, but you can't? If you really are afraid, you can tell us, Jo. We won't tell anybody."

"I'M NOT SCARED. I'm not…" I grit my teeth. "I'M NOT SCARED. You people treat me like I'm a little virgin and it's so annoying! Just because I don't talk about these things doesn't mean that I don't feel a certain way. Every single time I kiss him, I feel like hopping on top of him and just doing it. But I KNOW that if I do that, it'll end badly because I'M NOT READY. You think for one minute, I don't want to be able to walk around and tell everybody 'Yeah, Alex ate me out last night!' Of course I want to!" All three of their faces just go to completely shocked when I say that. They weren't expecting me to say something so vulgar, but what the hell? "I have to hear about it ALL. THE. FUCKING. TIME. I have to hear from Shane about the wild sex he had with you, Leah. I'm sick of hearing it. I want to be able to tell my own stories. I want to jump his bones so bad that I don't even know if I'm going to even think about condoms… I want him so badly. I've wanted him since the first WEEK we started dating. But I have morals… and I had my period… and now I'm not ready. Simple as that. I'm not afraid."

On the bed beside me, my phone buzzes pretty hard. Still a little bit ticked off about this whole conversation, I snatch it up and read the text message I just received.

**Thurs, Nov 6, 2013**

**6:37 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **can u come over tonight?

* * *

"I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU'RE MAD AT ME! I SHOULD BE THE ONE MAD AT YOU! YOU TELL ME YOU LOVE ME, THEN YOU IGNORE ME FOR DAYS?! NO, ALEX… IT'S NOT MY FAULT WE'RE HAVING THIS ARGUMENT. IT'S YOURS." I put my hands against his chest and push him hard into the wall. "YOU TREAT ME LIKE I'M NOTHING TO YOU AND I'M TIRED OF IT! YOU BRUSH OFF THE FACT THAT YOU HAD NAKED PICTURES IN YOUR PHONE, THE FACT THAT SHE'S BEEN TEXTING YOU AND YOU RUN AROUND AND TELL EVERYBODY MY BUSINESS?!"

"I never told anybody your business. The guys were asking me why I haven't banged you yet and I told them that you weren't like that, that's all. I never said you were afraid… I never said that you didn't want to. I never said any of that. I just told them that when it happens, it happens. I told them you were different."

"BUT YOU STILL DON'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! YOU HAVE GIRLS RUNNING AROUND, TELLING ME THAT THEY DID THIS AND THAT WITH YOU. HOW DO YOU THINK THAT MAKES ME FEEL?! AT LEAST I CARE ABOUT HOW YOU FEEL…"

"OH FOR GOD'S SAKE, GROW UP! YOU DIDN'T TELL ME ABOUT IT, I HAD TO FIGURE IT OUT FOR MYSELF!" His face is the reddest I've ever seen it before. The veins in his neck are popping out while he's yelling at me and his fists are clenched so tight that they're turning blue. "YOU DIDN'T TELL ME ANYTHING ABOUT IT. INSTEAD, YOU FREAKED OUT ABOUT IT IN MY BED AND LEFT ME GUESSING. YOU DIDN'T TELL ME."

"BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOU ANYTHING, ALEX! I DON'T HAVE TO TELL YOU ANYTHING ABOUT ME! IT DOESN'T MAKE ME A LIAR, IT MAKES ME HUMAN! I WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO KEEP IT FROM YOU IF YOU DIDN'T JUST FREAK OUT OVER EVERYTHING! I TOLD YOU I KISSED HIM AND YOU BROKE UP WITH ME WITH NO HESITATION. CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT'VE DONE WHEN YOU FOUND OUT I HAD SEX WITH HIM?!"

"IF THAT'S THE KIND OF RELATIOSHIP YOU WANT TO HAVE, THEN MAYBE YOU ARE JUST A LITTLE BIT TOO IMMATURE FOR ME."

"I'M IMMATURE?! I'M IMMATURE BECAUSE I DON'T FEEL LIKE I NEED TO TELL YOU EVERY LITTLE THING THAT GOES ON IN MY LIFE?! WHAT ABOUT YOU?! YOU FUCKED EVERY GIRL THAT MOVES AND THEN YOU EXPECT ME TO BE COOL ABOUT IT. HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO BE COOL ABOUT THAT? THAT'S PRETTY IMMATURE, ALEX."

"YOU WERE _RAPED _AND YOU DIDN'T TELL ME, JO! THAT'S THE THING! WE'RE TALKING ABOUT TWO TOTALLY DIFFERENT THINGS, HERE! YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT ME HAVING SEX WITH OTHER GIRLS AND I'M TALKING ABOUT THE FACT THAT A GUY HELD YOU DOWN AND FORCED YOU INTO IT!" He acts like he really might hit me, and I flinch. I take a step towards his little couch and cover my hands over my face. "…I'm not going to hit you…" His voice calms down a little bit. "But you don't have to tell me everything. You're right about that. Nowhere does it state that you have to tell me everything. But you're my girlfriend… and I love you. You DO have to tell me if someone hurt you. And you DON'T get to force me into promising you that I won't do anything about it." He reaches out and firmly wraps his arms around my waist. I just stiffen up.

"Get off me, Alex." I mumble.

"No." He picks me up off the ground and carries me effortlessly over to his bed. "We're going to sit down and we're going to talk to each other… because I'm not losing you over stupid shit. You're gonna talk to me and I'm gonna talk to you." He throws me on the bed, literally and sits down next to me. "Talk to me, Jo. Talk to me."

"You talk to me! I don't know how you expect me to open up to you when you don't open up to me. And when I do open up to you, you run around like a fucking queer and tell everyone that I'm afraid to have sex with you? When you know that's not true. You don't talk to me. You're a douche to me and you want me to be all angelic towards you? It doesn't work that way." I lean up, put my hands against his shoulders and aggressively push him down on the bed. "Talk to me. I'm your girlfriend, and I'm always on your side. There's nothing that you can't tell me. If you want me to tell you things, you have to tell me things too…. we have to do this together."

"I told you that I didn't tell anybody that you're scared. I know you're not scared… I know you're not. You're just… different." He sighs. "Different to me, too. Any other girl, I would've been… but you're different. I just want it to be special."

"I do too…and my idea of special isn't me crying about it afterwards because I wasn't ready in the first place. I don't throw around the… 'I love yous' if I don't mean it. I mean it when I tell you that. I love you, Alex. And I just want you to tell me how you're feeling. You're keeping it from me and I don't want you to. You feel some type of way about the fact that I had sex with Jason and you haven't had sex with me… aren't you?"

"Not at all." He shakes his head. "Because you didn't have sex with him. It's not like you wanted it. That's not my problem at all."

"Then what is your problem?"

"I feel like I failed you, or something…I took too long to do anything about it. If I was there for you, instead of dumping you at the first sign of trouble, I could've stopped it. The fact that I broke up with you and then he raped you… that's not setting right with me." He touches my jawline. "…The only reason… it took me as long as it did to go over there and do something about him is because… I saw it in your eyes. When you pushed me away, when you screamed at me to leave you alone and when you begged me not to leave you… I saw it in your eyes that you NEEDED me. So I waited until you had somebody else besides me… and that's when I snapped. I don't know what it is about you, but I'm crazy when it comes to you. I don't want anyone touching you… and he did. He did more than touch you. So I freaked out. Especially when I saw him."

"…What did you do?"

"I had a talk with him. A nice… long… talk." He reaches up and tangles his hand through my hair. "And I let him know that he'll never touch you again. He's never gonna touch you again… ever."

"…You don't expect me to believe that, do you?"

"What do you want from me? You asked me what I did, and I'm telling you. I'm telling you that I waited outside his house all night, I waited for him to come out and I caught him while he was taking the trash out. I brought him to my car and we had a long talk about you. And he got the picture that he should never touch you again. I wasn't nice about it… but he got the picture."

"Did you hit him?"

"A little bit." His hands rest themselves against my lower back. "I was gonna kill him, actually. I had my hands around his neck and he was actually starting to lose consciousness. But then I thought about how you needed me again, and I stopped. And we talked about it. And he gets the picture."

"So why couldn't you just tell me that? Why'd you have to give me all the dramatics and ignore me for days? Why?"

"I had to make sure he wasn't gonna press charges before I told you about it. He already tried to convince me that you were begging him for it and he told me that this could do something to your charges against him. If he pressed charges against me, it would've screwed up your case against him… get it?"

"So how'd you get him not to press charges?"

"I'll tell you that later." He leans up and kisses me on my lips. "I love you, though."

"I love you too."


	32. Push Yourself

"So, what about tomorrow?" I tilt my head to the side so he can have better access to my left side. "I have that meeting with the DA, but that's at one. Any time after that, I'm free." I flinch just slightly when I feel the heat radiating from my hair to my ear. "Crap, I forgot that tomorrow's Friday. You have football, don't you?" I'm still trying to figure out exactly how I managed to get him to do this. Maybe everyone actually had a point when they said that I've got him whipped. "Is it the championship yet? When is that? How many more rounds do you have until the championship?" He's being fairly quiet, however. He won't talk to me. "…Alex, you don't have to keep being so quiet…it's more awkward if you keep quiet about it."

"I just don't want to burn you." He grabs one piece and runs the straightener over it. "You have some pretty… wild hair, to say the least." I feel him lay the piece he just straightened down amongst the other straight pieces and he pulls a wavy piece out of the ponytail he put it in. "I like it better curly, I think." He straightens the curly piece he pulled out of the ponytail and puts the straightener down on the table in front of me. "But yeah, I do have football tomorrow… game's down in Arbor Heights and it starts at 7."

"I know how to get to Arbor Heights… I'll ask if I can drive out there to watch, if Shane's family's not already going. I seriously doubt that I'll be allowed to take my car to Arbor Heights, but I'll ask. But it's a playoff game, so I don't see why Shane's mom and brothers won't go. Especially if Shane's gonna be playing." I run my fingers through the pieces of hair that he straightened. He did a pretty nice job, if I do say so myself. And it only took him about an hour to do it as opposed to the two hours it would've taken me.

"You can always hop a ride with my mom, Aaron and Amber. She'd definitely take you." He runs the hot straightener over the last piece of my hair and puts it down, finally. "You want me to tell my mom you're riding with them tomorrow?" As if he's not done though, he picks up a brush that has strands of Amber's blonde hair in it and starts brushing it downwards.

"No! I only spoke to them like…twice. And you want me to sit in a car for a half hour with them tomorrow while we go to Arbor Heights? No… that's weird. No thanks." I put my head down so he can get my part right while he's brushing it. "And plus, I swear your brother doesn't even like me. He's always giving me the death stares. And he never even talks to me. The guy practically hates me…and I've never even spoken a word to him. Why does he hate me? Or is it just a creepy sophomore thing that he can't associate with a freshman?"

"Don't pay him any attention. He acts like a frickin' twelve year old. He's pissy and mad at me because he thinks I stole his girlfriend. Amber's nine and she's more mature than him. That's why when anybody asks me how old he is, I tell them that he's eleven or twelve. 'Cause he sure as hell doesn't act like a sixteen year old." He finishes brushing my hair and runs his own fingers through it. "Don't make a habit out of me doing your hair for you." He leans down and kisses my cheek. "Take a look. How'd I do?"

"Well did you steal his girlfriend? There has to be a reason why he seems to think that… and what does you stealing his girlfriend have to do with why he treats me so horribly?" I stand up and walk over to the only mirror he has in his room. The roots of my hair are still a little bit wavy and it looks kind of frizzy but it's straight and at least he tried. I appreciate it. "And you did good. Thank you."

"No, I didn't steal his girlfriend. I didn't even know he liked you. He never said anything about it to me, so how the hell was I supposed to know? So now he's all mad at me and acting like a little kid because of it. He thinks I'm dangling you in front of him by bringing you over here and having you stay the night and stuff. It's not my fault he waited too long to swoop in and make the move. The most he's ever said to me was that he had a crush on a freshman. I didn't know who that freshman was. Not my problem anymore."

"…Me?!" I turn around so quickly that all my hair spins around with me. "He liked me?! …And now he hates me?! What?!"

"He's delusional. He seems to think that somehow I knew that he was crushing on you and then I went after you. But whatever, I'll talk to him about the way he treats you. It's not your fault that his little heart got broken."

"….Why didn't he tell me that he had a crush on me? I could've let him down easy or something…" I gather up all of my hair, swing it to the side of my shoulder and sit down on the little couch. "I have a friend that's interested in him, if he cares. She's smart, funny… a little bit weird and really pretty. And she's a cheerleader…"

"Because that's all it ever was, was a crush. He didn't even know your name. He saw you that day you dressed all nice for the first time and he had a crush on you. He didn't even know your name." He shuts off the big ceiling light in his room so that it's pretty dark in here. He plops down next to me on the couch and turns on the TV. "…Which friend? I can tell you now if's Murphy, he's not interested."

"It's not Leah… she's dating Shane, anyway. It's Heather. The real short one with the blonde hair? Heather likes Aaron a LOT. And if he gave her a chance, I think he'd like her too. She's pretty and she's got a wicked sense of humor. And maybe she'll take his mind off me…"

"I'll ask him what he thinks about Brooks. If he says that he might be interested, I'm gonna leave it to you to hook them up." He grabs the remote control and starts flicking through the channels. "See anything you want to watch?" He hands me the remote so I can choose.

I push the "page down" button continuously and keep looking through the listings. I turn on an episode of "Girl Code" and put the remote down on the table in front of us, on top of a Playboy Magazine. "…Care to explain?" I motion to the magazine. "Does your mother know what you've been up to? Am I sitting on any… bodily fluids on this couch?" I laugh and tuck my legs underneath my butt to get comfortable enough to watch TV with him. "Do you at least disinfect the area?"

"Relax. I don't do any of that. I just buy the magazines for the free calendars inside." He picks up the magazine with a blonde-haired, big-breasted chick on the cover and tosses it to the side like it's nothing. "What the hell do you have me watching?"

"Girl Code." I turn it up louder just as the topic of discussion on the show changes from tampons vs. pads to PMSing. "This is basically the only TV I watch. This show is genius." I rest my chin in the palm of my hand and tune in to listen to what the girls on the show have to say about the subject.

_One of the comedian hosts with bright, fire-engine red hair starts talking. "Dealing with your boyfriend on your period, just don't say the first thing that comes to your mind… because it won't make sense. You're gonna tell him that you should've f*cked his brother… or his uncle. All because he didn't want to watch Wife-Swap with you."_

I can't help but really, truly crack up at that. Alex just slowly turns his head to face me. "…You're seriously gonna make me watch this with you?" I can tell just by the look on his face that he found that to be funny too. He just won't let himself laugh. "...Why are you doing this to me? First you make me cuddle with you… then you make me straighten your hair… and now you're making me watch some TV show about PMSing? I feel like I need to go to the gym. I'm not feeling manly."

"Oh chill out. It's just Girl Code." I turn the TV up just a little bit louder and keep watching. "Real boyfriends watch Girl Code with their girlfriends." I stretch out my legs just a little bit and end up tapping his leg with my foot. "Sorry." The girls on the TV show are talking about using the term "lol." "If you want me to turn it off, I will…"

"No, it's alright." He grabs the foot that I accidentally kicked him with and starts pulling my sock off. I'm too engrossed in the TV to even care about what he's doing. "What size are your feet?"

"Seven and a half." I mumble.

"You have small feet. Then again, you have small everything. Small hands, small feet… small ears. You're small."

"Mhm." I nod and keep watching the TV. Oddly enough, he takes my sock completely of and tosses it on the ground. He takes the other one off too. I still don't really care. Another muffled laugh comes out of my mouth from the TV show. He pulls up the pants-legs of my jeans and touches my ankle. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Nothing." It sure doesn't seem like nothing. He slides his hand up the leg and touches my knee. "It's just weird to touch you and know that you're a real person."

"…Do I look fake?"

"No… I just…" He picks my foot up in his hand and touches all five of my toes. "I didn't know perfection really existed. Like you're living, breathing, spitting, eating, blinking… human. And you're just a little bit perfect. It's weird that I get to touch you and you're perfection."

"…Stop it, Alex." I finally look away from the TV and at him. "Seriously. Don't do that." _When he compliments me, I'm not sure what I should say back to him. It seems shallow and a little bit vain to just say thank you. Is he seriously rubbing my feet? _I look down at how his hands are rubbing all over my right foot. I have half a mind to pull away from him, but I don't. "Stop…"

"Tell me something about you." He completely ignores my telling him to stop and keeps pushing on the pads of my toes. "Tell me something that nobody else would know. I have a freckle on my leg, but you'd never be able to see it unless you saw me naked. Tell me something like that…"

I cross my arms over my chest and throw my head back. I wiggle my toes because he's kind of tickling the bottom of my feet. _I don't have anything to tell him. I don't have a birthmark in an embarrassing place or anything like that. I don't have anything special to tell him. …Maybe the brown spots… that'll have to do. _"…You see the mole on my mouth?" I lean forward and poke out the spot that the mole is on, from the inside of my mouth with my tongue. "See it?" He nods. "…I have a million of these things on my body. Some on my chest, a bunch on my back, a couple on my thighs and one on my buttcheek. You'd never be able to see those unless I was naked…"

"I've seen a couple of the ones on your back." He leans across the couch at me. "You have one right here." He touches just below my neck. "And one right here." He touches the back of my shoulder blade. "I wish I knew where they all were, though." He kisses me on my lips and runs one of his hands through my hair while holding my jaw still with the other one. I ease up and shift my weight to the other side of my body which allows him to comfortably lie on top of me. So he catches on to the fact that I want him to hover over my body, I pull him down by the collar of his shirt. Our lips never break the kiss throughout the whole position exchange.

I subconsciously turn my thoughts off and just let myself do whatever I feel like doing. I don't think this is going to happen right now, but if it does I'm just going to let it happen naturally and try my hardest not to think about anything but him. I reach up and push his head down so that his mouth is harder against mine. Trying to match my intensity, he deepens the kiss and lets his tongue explore every inch of my mouth. Soon, just like I knew he would, he pulls away from the kiss and puts his lips on my neck. I close my eyes, bite down on my bottom lip and squeeze a handful of his hair while he's kissing me there. He knows how I feel about neck kisses… "A…" I start to call his name to tell him that I don't think this should happen like this, but I shut myself up. I want this… I really, really want this. He slides both his hands down the sides of my body and simultaneously, they meet with both my hands. Aggressively, he folds his fingers inside mine and squeezes my hands. Slowly, with every single kiss and suck he does on my neck, he slides my arms up and up until finally, they're resting over my head. He stops kissing my neck and lifts his head up to breathe.

_I can't do this… I can't do this… Yeah I can. _I pull my hands out of his and pull on the edge of his shirt. He gets the picture and lifts up, pulling it over his head. _Oh dear god, his body… it looks like someone carved him… carved him out of stone. God, yes. _I put my hands on his solid abs, just feeling around for a second. I slide them up to his back, wrap them around his shoulder blades and pull him back down to me. His mouth meets mine again. His skin is so smooth that it feels like buttermilk. I just stroke my hands along the lines of his muscles, occasionally stopping to pull his hair here and there. _What kind of underwear do you have on? Does your bra match? You have a million other things to be thinking about, but all you're worried about is what kind of undergarments you wore. And I can't think for the life of me, what kind of underwear and bra I'm wearing. _His hands wander down to my waist for a second. I can sense that he's unsure if he should unbutton my jeans, so I help him out. I reach down and unbutton them myself.

He grabs the rims of my jeans, careful not to take my underwear with them and pulls them down. I lift my hips up to help him out. _Pink heart printed fabric with black lace. Pink heart printed fabric is good. Pink hearts are girly, but the black lace sets it off so it's not too feminine. Good choice of underwear for today. _I kick my jeans off the already-cramped up couch and hear the fabric fall to the floor. His hands lift my shirt up and I feel my bellybutton ring spill out the bottom. I think he wants me to take my shirt off too, but I don't know about that. There are no blankets on this couch which means I'd be completely exposed and I think my shirt could stay on for all of that. I still don't think this is gonna happen… I put my hands firmly on his chest and push him up. His breathing is heavy, but I know that it's because he's trying to catch his breath from kissing me so much. "Do you want me to stop?" He's not looking me in my eyes, though. His eyes are below my waist and they're locked there. "I'll stop… but god…"

I shake my head. "No, don't stop." My voice is just as ragged as his is, from being so air-deprived with the kissing. I sit up and stand on my knees. I wrap my arms around his neck and lean against him to subtly guide him down so I can be on top. I feel better if I'm on top… if that makes sense. "Is your door locked?" I grab the edge of my shirt and pull it over my head, shaking my hair out of the head hole before I throw it on the ground with my jeans. His eyes grow by a whole size and he just blankly nods. "Good." I square off and put my legs on both sides of his body so I'm straddling him.

"God, you're sexy." He sits up instead of lying flat on the couch and kisses my neck again. His hands are all over my back, occasionally stopping to fumble around with the hook to my bra. My eyes flutter shut and I bite my bottom lip again. One of his hands pulls on the hook to my bra while the other one wraps itself around my waist. His unsteady breath is loud in my ears and I can tell by the growing bulge in the waist of his pants that this… HAS to happen. I'm doing well so far. I'm doing well. I reach down and grab the waistband of his sweatpants. He's too busy messing with my bra to even help me take his pants off, so I just let him go and hold onto his hair with both my hands instead. He's having serious trouble with my bra, so I pull my hair to both sides of my shoulders so it's out of the way and reach back and unbuckle it for him. Once it's unbuckled, he has no trouble taking it off and throwing it on the floor. "Holy shit…" He mumbles, staring at my almost-completely-naked body.

I kiss him on his lips once more and pull away. "Okay, take off your pants now." I start leaning back so we can switch positions again. Forcefully, he shoves me down so I'm lying flat on my back and he's between my legs. I start pulling on the waist of his pants again. I really don't get why boys have to cuss or comment on my body when I get even close to being naked. I swear I'm not all that special. Again, he completely ignores the fact that I'm trying to take his pants off to kiss all over my chest. _Are you sure you can do this? Are you sure? _Before I can even delve more into my thoughts, he lifts his bottom half away from mine just for a second, long enough that he can slide a hand between my legs.

I squeeze my eyes shut, tight and turn my head so that my face is hidden in the couch cushions, just in case I decide that I want to cry. I don't think I will cry but just in case, I don't want him to see it. _You're okay… seriously, you're okay. It's Alex, so you're okay. He's not gonna hurt you. It's okay. You're fine. _Below my waist, he uses his thumb to pull the top of my panties open and my breathing kind of…shortens. _Please don't do this to yourself. DON'T DO THIS. It's okay… I'm fine. _He slides his hand down my panties and my head starts spinning. _Stop it. It's okay. You're not gonna die. He's not gonna hurt you. Will you just at least try to enjoy it? _All of a sudden, my entire body just tenses up, I buck my chest upwards and a sharp gasp leaves my throat. "Ah…" _Was that a moan or are you about to have a panic attack? _I gasp again and my mouth just…falls open. _Moan. Definitely a moan. _I stuff my face back into the couch cushions and try to close my mouth, but it won't close. I just keep gasping and I can't close it to save my life. "Oh my god…" I whisper to myself. Because I don't know what else to do, I just grab the edge of the couch with my hand and squeeze. My whole entire reaction system is just out of my control. I can't stop gasping and moaning, if I squeeze the couch cushion any tighter it'll rip and even my toes are curling. My eyes roll to the back of my head and I just lie there, because that's all I'm good for right now.

_Don't think about it. Keep doing what you're doing. _I really want it to go further than just this. I want to actually… do it. Right here and right now. I want to do it. Don't get me wrong, his finger…or fingers are okay, but I want to actually do it. I'm ready for, I think. In this moment, I'm ready for it. I just want to do this. _Push it… just a little further. You can do it. You're okay. _I prop myself up on my elbows and finally open my eyes so I can actually try to see what he's doing. His body's blocking my clear vision, though. His face is in my neck, kissing it here and there. His free hand is curling and kneading its way through the tangled, now sweaty lengths of my hair and his other hand is busy doing work between my legs. I bring my hands up, slide them across his back and squeeze some of his skin. I'm not sure what he just did between my legs, but whatever it was, it makes my mouth fall open again and another moan unconsciously spills out. "Ahhh…." I have to kiss him. I have to stop moaning. It's weird. I force his head out of my neck and lure his mouth to mine. I kiss him hungrily. Easily, he picks up the pace down there. I moan into his mouth this time. "Mmmm…."

_Maybe you could try taking off your underwear… _I put my hand against his chest and softly push him away. Either he didn't feel me trying to push him away or he just ignored me. _Try calling his name. Just tell him you want to take your underwear off. It'll make it easier for him if you took them off. _I give him another soft little push. He doesn't budge again. _No, don't you dare do this. Don't you dare… _I feel it coming on, though. It's like a deep pothole in nothing but a one-way, straight road. I see it coming, getting closer and closer to me but I can't avoid it. I'm going to hit the pothole. _Stop… please just stop yourself. It's not that serious. _My eyes start stinging to warn me about what's about to come. "Alex…" I whisper. I close my eyes and shove my face in the cushions. _Don't do this to yourself. Please pull it together. _"…Alex…" I heighten the tone of my voice. _SHUT UP. YOU'RE NOT DOING THIS. Don't stop him. _Too late. Tears are rushing down my cheeks. "…Alex!" I merely yell his name this time.

He eases himself to a stop at what he's doing down there and he lifts his face up out of my neck. He sees the shiny tears that are glistening on my cheeks from the light of the TV and his face goes completely blank. Embarrassed, I put my hands over my face and suck a very deep breath into my lungs. When I exhale that breath, a crying moan comes out with it. I'm so embarrassed… _Leave. Just get out. You're seriously so pathetic for this. Just leave. Go home. Is it ten o clock yet? Is it past your curfew yet? Just go the hell home. _My jaw trembles uncontrollably and I sit up. I cover my chest and squint hard to try and see where my clothes are. I can't stop crying. I think I really just might throw up. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. You're so stupid. _"…I… I'll talk to you tomorrow." I manage to choke that out through the unrelenting urge to puke. I quickly pull my shirt over my head and stuff my legs into my jeans.

"Where are you going?!" He pulls his shirt on too. "You don't have to leave… do you?"

"No, I do… I'm such a fucking idiot and I'm gonna be sick…" I button my jeans up, shove my bra in my forearm and rush over to his door. "I'm so sorry…."

"Jo, you don't have to leave." He walks behind me and grabs onto my arm. "It's okay. It's my fault. I knew you weren't ready and I didn't make it easy for you to say no. I shouldn't have even made a move." He pulls on my arm. "Don't leave. I should've paid attention to how you were reacting. I should've known you didn't like it. I just thought… because you were… you know…" He pulls me closer to him some more but I just stiffen up like a board in front of him. "I just thought that because you were… ready down there, you liked it. I was being an asshole. I lost control for like two seconds and that's what happened. I lost control of myself and I'm sorry. Forgive me?"

"You're not the one that should be apologizing!" I snatch my arm away from him and take a couple steps back towards his door. "It's me. It really is me." I wipe my eyes with the backs of my hands. "I liked it… no, I LOVED it… and I pushed myself way too far. I knew it shouldn't have gone that far, but it did and now I'm freaking out and I cried and that's exactly what I didn't want to do. I have to leave."

"I don't want you to leave, though." He grabs my arm again and gently pulls me towards him again. "It's okay. I'm not mad at you and I don't think you're mad at me. Why leave if we're not mad at each other?" He leans down and gives me a quick peck on the lips. "I knew you weren't ready for something like that and I tried it anyway. I lost control of myself." He kisses me again, same peck though. "I told myself that all we were gonna do was make out a little bit and I wasn't gonna try anything. You took your pants off and I came a little bit loose. Then you took your shirt off and I completely lost it. I was gone before the bra came off. I didn't plan on doing that."

"I'm sorry. I just… I just want everything to be perfect. I don't want to freak out afterwards. I don't want to cry about it… because I don't feel like I should be crying. I really liked it and now I'm crying and I made a complete ass out of myself now." I lie my head down against his chest. "I'm sorry, Alex."

"Stop apologizing to me." He softly strokes over my back with the tips of his fingers. "…I'm glad we did it, though. I'm pleasantly surprised with you." He breaks the somber mood by adding in some potty-humor. "You look a whole hell of a lot better without clothes on."

"Shut up." I smack the back of his head. "You're really not mad at me, though?"

"No. I can't get mad over something that I knew was gonna happen. We'll just try again some other time." He kisses my forehead. "Your moan is really hot, by the way. And that little thing you do, when you roll your eyes back? Hot."

"Shut…. UP. I'm not gonna tell you again." My cheeks are red. _Blushing? Haven't done that in a while. _"…Still love me?"

"A little more than I did five minutes ago." He kisses me on my lips one last time.

* * *

"…He straightened… your hair?" Shane hovers over my shoulder, watching me while I do his math homework. "That's so gay." He sounds like he's in a really good mood and I can only imagine why. He's all cheerful and smiley and happy. Something I wish he wasn't, at least while he's around me. I'm trying to concentrate. "Something about Alex always struck me as 'gay'." He teases and I roll my eyes.

"Shut up, asshole." I elbow him in his abdomen and chew on the eraser of the pencil I'm holding while I think this through. I adjust my glasses on my nose and write down an answer. "He's not gay… he's just sweet. And if you keep calling him gay, you're ass-out on this homework. I'll let you take an F so you won't be eligible to play tomorrow. Fuck with me." After I did all the calculations in my head, I punch the original problem in the calculator. Right answer. "Leah would probably cry if you straightened her hair."

"Too bad I'm never straightening her hair." He shrugs and sits down at the island right next to me. "You said you were gonna tutor me, not do it for me…" Now he's just bringing up random shit. I roll my eyes at him again and put my pencil down to talk to him for two seconds.

"You're too stupid to teach." I pick the pencil back up and write down another answer. It hasn't really crossed my mind to tell Shane about what else happened at Alex's, two hours ago. I know that I will tell him, but I'm just not feeling like doing it right now. And if I don't tell him at all? Oh well. It's not exactly his business anyway. "You don't listen to me and you think I'm wrong all the time. I can't tutor you if you don't listen to me." I erase the answer I wrote down, as I found that I made a sign mistake and rewrite it. I start punching it into the calculator. "And how many times was I supposed to 'tutor' you? You never listen to me. I just end up doing all the work anyway."

"It really sucks having a brainiac for a sister sometimes." He bawls up a piece of my scratch paper and chucks it at me. It hits me in my head and I just give him a glare. "Gonna tell me about the hickey on your neck?" He pokes at it and I slap the shit out of his arm. "Owww… J, you're heavy-handed…" He rubs the spot I smacked him at. "So tell me about it…"

"It's a hickey… what else is there to know about it?" I close my eyes so I can do this problem in my head. I mouth "1,2,3,4,5…" I open my eyes when I have the answer. "We were kissing and he kissed me on my neck. That's how hickeys are given, dumbass. What else do you want to know about it?"

"Geez. Okay, don't snap out on me." He starts crumbling up another sheet of scratch paper. I reach over and snatch it away from him before he throws it at me again. "See?! You're snappin…"

"I'm not snapping…. You're bothering me while I'm doing Algebra." I push his chair away from me. "You want me to do it for you but you won't leave me the fuck alone to do it. Stop bugging me and being annoying. You're annoying me."

"Only because I feel like I haven't had a real conversation with you in a while." He flings another paper ball at me but misses. I grip the pencil in both of my hands and snap it in half like it's a toothpick, because I'm getting so irritated. I pick up another one from the pack on the table beside me. He chuckles. "..So what's this I hear about you fighting Lucy?"

"…She said some disrespectful things to me, so I'm fighting her." I angrily sharpen the pencil with the handheld sharpener. I'm getting so irritated with him.

"…Well her and her friend Megan and her other friend Taylor are talking about jumping you…"

"I don't care."

"…Why are you in such a bitchy mood, J? What did I do to you?"

"NOTHING. Can you shut up while I concentrate?"

He sighs and rubs the sides of his shaven head. He looks handsome with his haircut, I must say. But handsome in the "Aw, my grown ass brother" kind of way. I meant to tell him that I lied his haircut. "…Yeah. I'm sorry, J." He pushes his chair out and stands up. Softly, he pads out of the kitchen. "…J?" I guess he didn't leave yet. I wouldn't know, because my back is turned to the exit. "…J…"

"OH MY GOD, WHAT?!" I break another pencil and snatch a new one out of the pack again.

"…Do you still like me?"

I wrinkle my eyebrows at him and squint my eyes. _What the hell kind of question… _"Of course I like you Shane. Now go away and quit bugging me. I'm not in the mood." I wave him off.

"…You don't really talk to me anymore. I know you're busy with everything, and you're still a little mad at me because I made you tell… and you have Heather and Leah and Steph… but you're still my best friend, aren't you? You've just been really mean to me lately…"

"How is doing your homework being mean, Shane?"

"…I don't know. I just miss you…"

"How do you miss me? I LIVE here. I see you every day. I sleep in your bed. How do you miss me?"

"You don't talk to me anymore."

"Stop whining."

"Look Jo, I know you've been going through some pretty heavy things as of late, but stop acting like a totally different person. You're such a bitch anymore. Stop it, Jo. I'm serious." He stomps over to me. "I know you're mad at me because I made you tell, but you need to get over it. I forgave you after you stole my mom, didn't I?" He's smiling so wide at me. That's my favorite Shane smile.

I put down the pencil and crack a smile too. "I never stole your mother."

"Bullshit. You stole her, right out from under my nose. I was three years old and you STOLE her."

"You're just mad because she liked me better! If I remember correctly—"

"YOU DON'T REMEMBER CORRECTLY. Because you STOLE her."

"SHUT UP, I REMEMBER PERFECTLY…." And with that, the memory just sort of… plays in my head. I guess I'm glad I didn't block that out…

"_Gibbit… gibbit BACK!" I grab a thick piece of Shane's skin between my index finger and thumb and give him a good pinch. "Gibbit! Gibbit!" He took my pacifier! I need it back. I wanna take a nap. He pulls on one of my long pig tails and spits at me. "SHAY, GIBBIT TO ME!"_

"You held my pacifier hostage. You held it hostage because I wanted to take a nap on your mom's lap. You're the devil! I was three years old and you held it hostage!"

"You were trying to steal my mom!"

"Lucifer!"

"Mom stealer!"

I'm really glad I didn't block that one out. Do I only block out the bad things?


	33. Keep Something

**Fri, Nov 7, 2013**

**2:35 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Heather: **What are you doing tonight? :)

**Me: **football game then nothing, probably. why?

**Heather: **We told you that we wanted to have a sleepover this weekend. Tonight?

**Me: **sure. who's house? i'll most likely be allowed.

**Heather: **My place.

**Me: **okay. after the game?

**Heather: **Yeah. Why don't you just ride home from the game with us? Pack your stuff and bring it to the game & then you can just ride home with us.

**Me: **aren't you guys cheering?

**Heather: **Yeah but my mom is taking us back to the house after the game. You can just ride with us.

**Me: **alrighty.

* * *

"You have any questions about what happened today?" She slides a plate across the island at "I know they used a lot of big, big words that you probably didn't understand…" She puts her own plate down across from mine and grabs two forks. I use the flat side of my fork to cut off a piece of French toast and dip it into the side of syrup I drizzled on the side of my plate. I shake my head and shove the piece into my mouth. I really don't have anything to ask her. Yeah, big words were used, but I understood what all of them meant. Basically, the rape charges are all set. It's going to have to go to a jury because he's still refusing the fact that he did it. The DA is going to plead my case to twelve strangers and they're going to tell me if they think I'm lying or not. If they believe me, Jason gets five years in juvi, plus three years of probation. If they decide that I'm lying about it, Jason gets off free. I know exactly what all those big words meant. "Did you think about taking the plea deal?"

"…No, I haven't." I take another bite of French toast and stare down at my plate. They also told me that I could just tell the judge that it was consensual. I could lie and say that the sex was consensual and all charges will be dropped but I'll be granted a restraining order and a PFA. I don't think I'm really into lying about what happened to me, though. "I kind of just want everything to go away… I want to try and be normal again. Whatever happens… happens. I've never been very good at convincing people to believe me anyway."

"That's not true, baby." She reaches across the way and wipes a speck of syrup off my bottom lip. "You just go up there and tell the truth about what happened. Everything will fall into place if you tell the truth. Everything's gonna be fine. He's gonna pay for what he did to you, you're gonna start school back on Monday… everything is going to be fine." Her curly black hair falls over her shoulder and she moves it away. "…Sorry you didn't get to spend more time there… I can always take you back tomorrow…"

"No, it's fine. …Thanks for taking me in the first place." I tuck my own hair behind my ear and push my plate away from me. I don't have much of an appetite anymore. "…It's really beautiful, you know…" I swallow a lump in my throat and rub my lips together. "I keep trying to think about how they knew that she would've wanted that. I lived with her and I didn't even know that…" I close my eyes softly and of course, I just see it on the back of my eyelids. It honestly was singlehandedly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I wasn't expecting it to look like that. I never really actually sat down and thought about it. I never laid in my bed and night and thought about exactly where she might be. It's like Miss Kelly read my mind by taking me there. I, of course, didn't know that I wanted to see it as badly as I did. It never occurred to me that it was something I needed to see until I actually saw it today. I think somewhere inside me, I'm content with knowing that she's somewhere. It helps to be able to put her somewhere, you know?

**x x x**

_We were supposed to go straight home. We were supposed to go to the appointment with the DA, discuss some things about the charges against Jason, get a court date and go home. So while I was sitting there in the passenger's seat of the car, I was puzzled to see that Miss Kelly missed the exit to get onto the road that would've lead us home. I don't know if I'm happy or sad that she brought me here. Something tells me that if she wouldn't have brought me here though, I would've never been able to see this. I think she's the only one that would have even thought to bring me here._

_Holy cow, it's beautiful. This is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I can't help but reach out and put my hand against the cool, rock solid marble. The grass surrounding it, is a dead-colored brown due to the fact that it's fall and nothing blooms in Seattle during the fall, even though it rains nonstop. Around the base are various flowers that are blooming in shades of yellow and pink. The fresh dirt around the flowers lets me know that they were freshly planted. The stone that my hand is rested on is light grey and carved out in the shape of two, interlocked hearts. Across the tops of both hearts, written in red marbled colored dye, it says "In Loving Memory Of" and carved out in black ink inside the left heart, it says "Franklin Raymond. Son, Father, Brother, 'Pappy'. May 15, 1946 – August 11, 1999." I sit down on the ground and cross my legs indian-style as I look to the right heart. "Barbara Jean. Daughter, Mother, 'Grammy'. September 29, 1946 – October 18, 2013" And across the bottom of both the hearts, it says "Wilson" in big, capital letters._

_I don't know if I believe in heaven. I don't know if I believe in hell. I don't know what I believe anymore. If you're dead, are you just dead and that's it? Are grammy and pappy both just lying underground? Is it true when they say that people in heaven are looking down on you? If that's true, I have a lot to say… if they can hear me. I touch the picture of grammy that's above her name and her birth/death date. "…I'm sorry I didn't come to see you sooner." My stomach starts to ache as I feel the tears coming on. "And I'm really sorry that I wasn't there… at least you're with pappy though, right? I love you grammy… okay? And I'm really trying here. I really do think about you all day." I put my face in my knees and sniff. "I um… I wash my own clothes, you know… I wash my own clothes. And I don't let them sit in the basket. I put them away. And I can braid my own hair. I've been practicing…" I tilt my head back and sigh. "And I'm not mad at you. I said some bad things to you, but I'm not mad at you. I'm not doing good, grammy. I um…" I clear my throat. "I picked up on a bad habit. And the only one that would know what to do about it is you. You'd be so mad at me…" I sigh again. "You always told me that I had the most perfect skin you've ever seen… but I've been cutting it. You'd be so mad at me."_

_I scoot over towards the gravestone some more and rest my cheek against it. "I don't think you'd want me to be sad, but I haven't gone a day without crying in a month." I sniff. "They uh… they put me in foster care, you know… People are awful, grammy. You never warned me how horrible people can be." Call me crazy, but I wrap my arms around the stone. "I feel like I'm carrying around fifty pound weights in my chest every day. I just wish you could've stayed a little bit longer. I still need you…" I wipe my eyes but it's useless because more tears just come. "Is it really better? When they say you're in a better place… is that true? Is it better than being here? I'm beginning to think that I should go to church or something." I stroke my hands across the stone. "I don't think I ever thanked you. I started thinking it was normal for you to take care of me… but I know that you didn't have to. So thank you." Out of nowhere, the loud crack of thunder makes me jump. Immediately after the thunder, raindrops start pouring down on me. "…Are you crying?" I pick my head up and smirk. "Don't cry, grammy…" I start shivering a little bit. "…If I make it out of this alive, I'll see you again someday…"_

_I hear the soft crunching of feet approaching me in the field. "Jo? Come on, sweetie. I don't want you to catch a cold. Come on honey." Miss Kelly puts her hand on my shoulder. "We can come back another day, when it's not raining… come on." Surprisingly, I don't feel the need to freak out. Instead, I calmly stand up, let her hold my hand and take me back to the car._

**x x x**

"…You think heaven really is as good as everyone thinks?" I step down out of my chair I was sitting at and pick up both of our plates. "…Everyone always calls it 'a better place'. Do you really think it's a better place or do you think nobody knows what they're talking about?" I turn on the faucet and start making dishwater to wash the dishes in the sink. "Because those who say it's a better place aren't really dead… so how would they know?"

"You worry way too much, baby girl." She stands behind me and starts pulling my hair back into a ponytail. "And you worry about things you have no business worrying about. You know, if we all worried about what heaven's like… what people think of us… where we go when we die… we'd all have grey hairs by the time we're twenty." She pretends to pull out a piece of my hair. "Speaking of grey hairs, look at the one I just pulled out of your scalp. You're going grey, baby." She shows it to me, but there's nothing in her hand.

"…There's nothing there!" I squeeze some dish detergent into the water.

"That's because it's SO grey that it's invisible." She winks at me and I playfully roll my eyes. "Are you rolling your eyes?! What did I tell you about that?!" She puts her hands on my hips and starts tickling me. "I told you about rolling your eyes at me, didn't I?!"

"STOP!" I try to get her off me without actually being disrespectful. "Stop, stop, stop!" I pull my hands out of the dishwater and start pushing her away, laughing uncontrollably. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I won't roll them again!"

Even though I'm begging her to stop "tickle-torturing" me, she doesn't. She used to do this to me ALL THE TIME when I was little. "I'm not gonna tell you not to roll your eyes at me again! It's disrespectful!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! Mom, stop it!" I push her away with my soapy hands and scream. "STOP!" I try to push her hands away, but for the tiny woman that she is, she's pretty strong. _Since when are you calling her "mom" again? I don't know. It felt natural to just say it, I guess. Whatever, don't make a habit of it. _She finally stops tickling me and just resorts to hugging me. "I told you to not to do that. One of these days, you're really gonna make me pee on myself." I give her an awkward side-hug to avoid getting her wet with my hands.

"…You're calling me 'mom' again…" She must not care that my hands are wet, because she grabs me and pulls me into a real, embrace-in-embrace hug. "…Can I tell you a secret, Josie?"

"Mhm." I realize that I kind of really needed a hug. It's been a while since I've had a "mommy" hug. I've had a couple Alex hugs, a Shane hug, a Heather-Leah-Stephanie hug, but I really needed a mommy hug. I lie my head on her shoulder and squeeze my arms against her body. She smells the way she's smelled for thirteen years. Like expensive, florally smelling perfume and laundry soap with just a hint of masked cigarette smoke. When I was little, that was one thing I always liked about Shane's mom. I liked the fact that she smelled the same way every single time I hugged her. I just knew that if I couldn't count on anything else in my life, I could count on the fact that she'd smell the same the next time I hugged her.

She starts running her fingers through my hair, down the whole length. She starts at my crown and drags her fingers all the way to the middle of my back where my hair stops. "I used to pretend that you were my little girl." She says that with a straight face and a serious voice. I giggle softly under my breath. _I could've guessed… _"Go 'head and laugh, but it's the truth. See, on Shane's dad's side of the family, there have been thirteen consecutive boys, including Shane and his brothers. I think all Anthony was capable of was making boys, honestly. He and his brothers all have boys. So I kind of already knew that I'd probably never get my little girl with him. So I used to pretend that you were mine."

"…You didn't really have to pretend…" I squeeze her a little bit tighter to let her know that I don't plan on letting her go. "…My gram was the best. She really did everything she could and I loved her a whole lot. But I knew… even when I was little, I knew that there were some things she wouldn't be able to do for me that a mother would be able to do. I used to pretend that you were my mommy… when I was little, I mean. Like when I would get too heavy for my gram to hold me while I slept, because she had her arthritis… I used to hold onto my pillow and act like it was you." I sigh at how pathetic I was back when I was little. I was really a case. "…So I guess we both were a little bit weird. I never really thought you liked me that much, though."

"It's not weird, sweetie. We were both just going through some things." She starts rubbing my arms when she's finished with my hair. "And I love you, Jojo. I remember the first time I realized that you were everything I'd want my little girl to be."

"When was that?"

"You remember…" She lets a little laugh slip. "You remember when you were either three or four… and you and Shane were in the living room playing 'talent show'… and I came in from doing some work out in the yard and I caught you guys playing, but I recorded it instead? And you were mortified?"

"…Oh god, yes. That was terrible! I've never been that embarrassed in my life. I was three, Shane was four… that was so embarrassing… I let Shane talk me into going first, which was already a horrible idea. …I think I was singing… I was singing…"

"Nelly Furtado."

"Oh my god!" I put my hand over my face and blush. "I totally remember that." _You ever notice how you have a tendency to remember all the horrible things? You can remember the time you were embarrassed at three years old, but you can't remember what your favorite toy was back then. The embarrassing things stick with you. _"And then I told you that I wanted to take a nap… because I was so embarrassed." Like I've been doing a lot lately, I replay that entire scene in the back of my head; embarrassment and all.

"_You go first 'cause I don't got my talent yet." Shane sits down on the couch and puts his thinking face on. Okay, I'll go first. But he's going first next time we play. _

_Excuse my terrible lisp and the fact that I couldn't talk without a pacifier in my mouth. "Okay. You at my concerth okay? You havta cheer for me. Or you can boo me off stage." I grab his wrist and squeeze. "Don't boo me off stage though. I'll smawck your faceth if you do. But don't let me win." Shane's an expert and knowing what I'm saying despite the fact that I have a binky in my mouth. I take my binky out and put it on the coffee table. I clap my hands together and take a breath. "Okay so… I'm Jojo and I'm gonna thsing today…" I saw this on an episode of American Idol once. You have to introduce yourself and talk about your talent. "I wroted this song mysewth and… I hope you like it."_

_Shane claps and "cheers" for me. "Yay, go Jojo!"_

_I pick up the remote to sing into it and start swaying back and forth, thinking that I'm actually a really good dancer when I obviously suck. And I don't even start the song from the beginning. I just start singing from anywhere. "I'm…am a bird… I flied away… I no know where…my soulth is… and my home is…" And of course, I screwed up the lyrics. But since I'm dressed in my usual get-up, I twirl around and make my skirt flare out. My gram put me in a black velvet, flowy mini skirt and a pink shirt. My hair is all tied back in a ponytail with a pink and black polka-dotted hairbow. "Bay bay… I needth you… know is… I'm am a biiird…" I hear a laugh come from the corner and I look over. Shane's mom's recording the whole tragedy on her handheld recorder. My bottom lip unconsciously slides out from underneath my top lip and immediately, the waterworks come crashing down._

"_Awww… Jo, don't cry!" She puts the camera down on the table next to where she was standing and rushes over to me. "What's wrong, sweetheart? What's the matter?"_

_I outstretch my arms and walk towards her. "I wanna take a nap… I take a nap…" She picks me up and I cry into her shoulder. "I wanna take a nap right now…"_

"_Oh honey, you're so cute." She wipes my tears._

* * *

**Fri, Nov 7, 2013**

**10:21 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **are you okay?

**10:30 p.m.**

**Alex: **Yeah why wouldn't I be?

**Me: **you got hit pretty hard out there tonight. my heart skipped a beat… are you sure you're okay?

**Alex: **I'm fine babe don't worry

**Me: **okay. what are you doing tonight?

**Alex: **Nothing unless u want to do something

**Me: **i'm staying at the heather's. i want you to get some rest or something. don't go out and celebrate the win with the boys for too long. i want you to rest.

**Alex: **I didn't plan on going out anyway

**Me: **oh. ok. i love you.

**Alex: **Love you too. Have fun with your friends tonight

**Me: **i will. text me before you go to bed.

**Alex: **I will.

**Alex: **Are u ok?

**Me: **yeah i'm totally fine. why?

**Alex: **just checkn. ross told me u went to the cemetery today. u ok?

**Me: **oh yeah. i'm fine. i'm totally cool off that.

**Alex: **alright. Text me if u need anything

**Me: **i will.

* * *

"So I was over Alex's last night, and I told him to tell Aaron that I have a friend that's interested in him." I grab a handful of popcorn from the bowl and weasel it piece by piece into my mouth. "He said Aaron's into blondes with blue eyes. And I told him that my friend has blonde hair and blue eyes. And he said if he finds out that Aaron's interested, he'll leave it up to me to hook you guys up." _You probably shouldn't tell her that Aaron had/has a crush on you. That might make a couple people mad at me. _"I think it's safe to say that you're in. I'm an excellent wingman."

"Oh my god Jo, you're an angel." Heather pounces on me, hugs me and kisses my cheek. "You beautiful, beautiful, BEAUTIFUL human being!"

"Chill out a little… I still have some work to do." I wink at her.

Leah's eyes narrow and she smiles at me. "What were you doing at Alex's house?"

"Just hanging out." My cheeks turn bright red.

"Liar!" Steph hits me with a pillow. "Spill your guts!"

"Nothing even happened! We kissed and that was it." I'm still blushing. "…And maybe we did some other things, but that's not really any of you guys' business."

"What'd you do?!" Leah springs up onto her feet and pounces on the bed next to me. "Come on, what'd you do?! Did you have sex?!"

"No."

"Did you go down on him?!"

"NO!"

"Did he go down on you?!"

"No, Leah."

"….Oh goodness, you skank. He totally buried his knuckle, didn't he?!" _It sounds so gross when she puts it like that. _I stuff my face into one of Heather's pillows and grit my teeth. "Caught you, you hoe. Give us details!" I shake my head. My face is so red.

"…So was it all romantic and passionate?" Steph leans forward on Heather's bed and gets all in my face. "You can't just tell us that… and not give us details. We want deets. Dirty deets. Spill." I look away from Steph's eyes because I can't keep a straight face. Steph is like freakishly pretty without her glasses. I noticed that she doesn't wear them quite as often whenever we're around. She's really pretty without them. "Come on, Jo. SPILL."

"Nothing to spill…" I shrug my shoulders and pet the cloth of Heather's bedspread.

"Did you growl and moan all loud?" Leah throws a piece of popcorn at me.

"Leah!" I bury my head inside of one of Heather's pillows again and blush some more. "No! It totally wasn't like that…"

"I always knew you were a secret freak, Jo." Steph shakes her head at me like she can't believe what I just told them.

"…I don't know… it was kinda…" I pick my face up out of the pillow and look at them. "I guess I liked it. It wasn't horrible. It was just… it happened quick."

"One finger or two?" Heather presses me for details too.

"One. It was only one."

"Which finger was it?" Steph asks.

"…Like I know! I wasn't really paying attention to all of that…" I bite my bottom lip. "…The middle finger."

"OH MY GOD! So did you like…" Leah looks really happy for me, which is a little bit weird I think. "Did you… you know…."

"I mean yeah, I guess I moaned… I did a lot of gasping, actually. It was more like a…" I close my eyes and try to imitate the sound I was making. I sound like I hiccupped. "Not exactly like that, but… something similar. And a couple of oohs and ahhs but nothing special."

"That's not what I was talking about…"

"What were you talking about then?"

"You know… the big… O."

The big… "Oh…. no. No, no, no. It wasn't like that."

"Then what the hell was it like then?" Heather taps me on my back. "That's kind of the point, you know. Every time a guy finger-banged me, I did… so what's your excuse?"

"I DON'T KNOW!" I roll my eyes up to the ceiling. "I really don't know if I ever did. I don't think I ever have… How do you know if you do?"

"Oh believe me… you'll know." Leah nods her head. "You'll know."

Steph just starts smiling. "…So was he nice? Was he gentle or was he kinda rough?"

"…Both?"

"How?"

I close my eyes. "…Okay, so obviously yesterday wasn't the first time I've done that. The guy I lost my virginity to did it for a little while before we actually… yeah. But when he did it, it was all uncomfortable and his fingernails were all long and shit." I lick my lips. "But last night, it wasn't like that. It was like… easy. He didn't scratch me or anything. It was easy… but kinda… fast? I dunno… he kept kissing me through it, so that was nice."

"…Aw, Jo's in love." Heather bats her eyelashes.

"I'm not in love…" I tune my nose up and shake my head. "I love Alex… but I'm not in love with him. I'm not even close to being in love with him. I mean, I think about him a lot. I stay up at nights and hit my head against the wall thinking about him. And I get butterflies when I see him. And I get all sad when I have to leave him. And I thought I was gonna die when he got tackled today, cause he was a little slow getting up… but I'm not in love."

"You're totally in love."

"I'm not in love, Heather."

"Just admit it. You're in love." Leah starts teasing me this time.

"Jo's in love." Steph chimes in.

"I'm NOT in love…"

"Just say it. You're in love."

I roll my eyes at them. "…You guys ever see 'Hercules'? The baby Disney version… you know… 'Hercules'?"

"Yeah, that's my favorite Disney movie, actually." Steph nods.

"Once or twice… not really a Disney fan." Leah shrugs.

"Used to watch it every night before bed." Heather admits.

Okay, so they've seen the movie. So they might get what I'm alluding to. Call me corny, but sitting here arguing with them just reminded me of a scene in the movie. I think they'll get it. I make my voice all high-pitched and squeaky and start singing. "…If there's a prize for rotten judgment… I guess I've already won that. No man is worth the aggravation…" I sit up and swing my hair from side to side. "That's ancient history, BEEN THERE DONE THAT!"

They got it. They caught on pretty quickly and they all start singing in unison with me, as my "backup" singers just like on the movie. "Who you think you're kidding? He's the Earth and heaven to you! Try to keep it hidden, honey we can see right through ya. Girl you can't conceal it. We know how you feel and who you're thinking of…."

Through laughter, I "sing" my next lines. "NO CHANCE, NO WAY! I WON'T SAY IT!"

"You swoon, you sigh why deny it?!" The girls back me up.

"IT'S TOO CLICHÉ, I WON'T SAY I'M IN LOVE…"

"Get a grip girl, you're in love!"

"At least out loud… I won't say I'm in love." I lie back against the pillows again and sigh. _I wish I could lie here forever. There are just some things that I can do with the girls that I could never do with Shane. I could never do anything like this with him… and they just bust out into song with me. I have the best friends in the world right now. So why do I feel so crummy? Why do I feel like I could never just leave this? _"…You guys are the best…"

"What are friends for?" Steph smiles at me. "We bust out in song with you, we tell you you're ugly… tell you that you're in love… what else are we for?"

_I just can't help but think about all of these things that I missed out on by not growing up with girlfriends. It's weird, because I can feel myself pushing Shane away. The more and more I bond with the girls, the more I feel like they're what I need. I don't want to not be Shane's friend, but I just feel myself pushing him away… I missed out on so much by just secluding myself with him. I think I want to hang out with them more. I think I might want to be a cheerleader next year. _I sit up to tell them my new revelation. "So guys…" I pull my shirt sleeves up and pull a ponytail holder off my left wrist. "I think…" I tie my hair back in a ponytail. Steph looks over at Leah and Leah looks over at Heather. All three of their faces match each other's. They're looking at me like I'm disgusting… like I'm gross. Like I just did something… like admitted to causing 9/11 to happen. _What did I do? _"…Guys?" I trace their eyes, and I realize what they're looking at. Shit.

"…Jo?" Steph's voice comes out in nothing higher than a whisper.

"What?" I mumble, taking my arms down and pulling my sleeves to their normal position. "It's not that big of a deal, just… leave it alone."

"But Jo…" Leah's voice is in the same tone as Steph's.

"I said LEAVE IT ALONE." _First Shane, and now them? First Shane forces me into telling… and now they're gonna force me into this? Seriously? Why can't I keep friends? _"It's none of your business…"

"But we're your friends…" Heather whispers.

"Exactly. You're my friends, not my mothers. Leave it alone." I take a deep breath. "It doesn't even hurt… just…" I sigh. "What were we talking about?" The three of them just look at me, horror written all over their faces. I think I just fucked up again.

_Why can't I keep good friends?_


	34. Stop Doing That

"…Jo? Are you still awake?" Leah's low-pitched voice calls out to me in the pitch-black darkness. If she's trying to whisper, she's not doing a very good job at it. I don't know what she could possibly want from me. It's 4:30 in the morning, Heather and Steph both fell asleep before we could even finish the movie we were watching and Leah and I both agreed to lie down about a half hour ago. We've both been lying here in silence for quite some time now and I could probably get away with faking like I'm asleep. "Jo?" She calls my name again. Whatever she wants must be of pretty decent importance to call my name twice. Maybe she knows I'm awake, and that's why she's trying me. How could she possibly know that I'm awake, though? It's so dark in Heather's room that I can't even make out the silhouettes of what things might be. I feel her body move just slightly as she switches positions. Her butt is still against mine because we're lying back to back next to each other but her head moved over a little bit. The next sound that comes from her mouth is a disappointed sigh as she switches her position entirely.

_She must really want you for some reason. Don't be an ass and pretend like you're asleep. _"…Yeah, I'm awake." I sigh too and turn my head so it's facing her. I didn't realize how close we were to each other until our noses touch. "Whoa… sorry." I scoot my head over. "What'd you want?" I slide my hands up underneath the pillow I'm lying on and flip so that I'm lying on my stomach. The "prissy" part of me is extremely glad that Heather and Steph fell asleep on the floor so that I only have to share the bed with Leah.

"…I know you said that you don't really want to talk about it, and I respect that…" Her voice trails off into a lighter tone. "But I kinda know what it's like to feel like that's the only thing that helps… and I know that it makes you feel good for a second. But if you ride it out… it'll make you feel so low…" She stops talking for a moment. "And it's addicting. And it's really hard to stop. I know you're not addicted, but you should still try to ditch it…while you can."

"How could you possibly know how I feel, Leah?" I roll my eyes hard at her. "Unless you've been in my shoes, don't speak on my behalf. You don't get it… so don't act like you do." I squeeze my hands into tight fists to try and shake off my escalating anger so I don't flip out on her. I told the three of them to never mention it again, and here she is… mentioning it.

"…Right. I know I'm not Stephanie or Alex or Shane, and you're not comfortable with me. I also know that you don't like me that much… but I could still help. I don't give very good advice, and I'm nothing but a fuck-up myself, but I listen very well. And my…" She clears her throat. "My feet might be bigger than yours… but I'm pretty sure we have the same shoes."

"Shut up, Leah." I'm about six seconds away from picking up my phone, calling Shane to tell him to unlock the door, getting in my car and driving myself back home. "Shut the fuck up. You don't get to judge me. You… you don't get to mock me for these things. You have NO idea about the shit I put up with. You have no idea what it's like to be me. So please, shut up… before I get angry."

"I never said I know what it's like to be you… but I'm trying to say that I've been there." She sounds like she's sorry, without actually saying sorry. "I've been at that point before and I know how much it sucks. And I remember wishing that I had somebody that would just get it and not think that I was just trying to kill myself. It's more than that, isn't it? You're not necessarily trying to commit… you just want to feel better. I get that. And I know what it's like to not have somebody that gets that. That's all I'm saying. I don't know anything you've been through, and I can't possibly imagine how rough it is for you. But people struggle in different ways…"

I lie there against the pillow, deep in thought. _She's been wrong about three things, so far. One, she was wrong when she assumed that I'm not trying to kill myself. While the majority of that statement is true, I also don't think I'd care that much if I cut too deep and ended my life. I'm not actively trying to commit suicide, but if it happens… it wouldn't be the worst thing at this point. Two, she was wrong when she assumed that I don't like her as much as I like Stephanie and Shane. I like Leah a whole lot, actually. She's just a little bit superficial. And three, what she said about being addicted. Define "addicted"? Is addicted the fact that I seriously can't go longer than a day without doing it? It's all I think about, really. All I think about is feeling that sense of control and relief when I drag that blade across the skin by my palm. I think about other things from time to time, but that's always there… always on the backburner of my mind…waiting for me to let it boil over and take control. _"…When did you stop?" I shift my position again so that I'm facing her completely. "I don't know if I'll ever stop… and it scares the crap out of me…"

She sits up against the headboard of the bed and taps the spot right beside her. Quietly, I sit up too and scoot next to her. To my immense surprise, because Leah doesn't strike me as the touchy-feely type, she wraps one of her arms around my shoulders and pulls me closer so that my head is against her shoulder. She topples her head on top of mine and sighs. "I went away for it, actually." I can tell by the tone of her voice that she's not exactly comfortable talking about this either. "Don't tell Steph and Heather… okay? They don't really know any of this…" I nod. "I told everybody that I was going to California for a month last summer, but I really went to this camp… that helped me stop."

"You actually had to get sent away for it?" I cover my hand over my mouth to avoid the noise that's about to come out of my mouth as the tears start to fall. "I'm so scared. Every time I do it, I tell myself that it's gonna be the last time. But I just keep doing it. And I can't stop. At first, it was like…" I hold my hand against my chest and seriously start hyperventilating. I'm literally having a breakdown. "I… I only did it… when I was feeling sad. But now it's like… every single emotion, I do it. If I'm happy, I'll do a little one. If I'm sad…. I'll do four. If I'm anxious, I'll do three… it's so scary…" I struggle to take a couple of breaths. "I don't want to get sent away…"

"It helps if you have someone to talk to about it." She uses her fingers to wipe away the tears that are coming out of my eyes. "I was way too embarrassed to tell Steph and Heather about it, so I had nobody to talk to. My mom saw them while I was washing the dishes one day and she made me swear to stop. She saw them again about a month later and sent me away. I still don't think I would've had to go anywhere if I had someone to talk to about it." I think she's crying too, because her cheeks are wet. "It's weird how easy it was to stop, once I started talking to the counselor about it. I mean, they put me on anxiety pills and all that good stuff, but it was so easy. I just… spilled my guts to the counselor every time I was starting to feel like I needed to. It wasn't easy at first, but it was easy after a while. I still want to do it every now and again though…"

"I have a therapist but she doesn't help… I mean, I feel good after I see her. I feel really good after I talk to her. But the next day, I'm all depressed again. And I know people say 'I'm depressed' lightly, whenever they get a little upset… but I really mean it. I'm so depressed, Leah. I literally just don't see any future for me anymore. I used to be able to see where I wanted to be in ten…fifteen years… but I seriously don't see a future for myself anymore. I'm getting to that point where I just don't know the point anymore. I've had the Tylenol in my hand so many times, but I always just… put it down. And I'm scared that one day… I won't." _It's just coming out. Like mouth diarrhea. _"I just don't understand how everything was so perfect… everything was perfect and then…boom. Everything's shitty. I don't want to sound dramatic, but my whole life is ruined…"

I feel a tear dribble down on my shoulder. She's crying too. "I know." She wipes my tears away and I politely reach up and wipe hers too. "…You ever feel like… no matter how hard you try, you still won't be happy? You ever just feel like… you don't want to kill yourself… but if you do, you don't care?"

"All the time." I sigh. "And I know people out there have it a lot worse than I do. I know that. I know there's someone out there somewhere who has it so much worse than I do. But I really feel like this is just too much…. I don't think a sixteen year old should have to go through this. It gets so tiring to put on a fake smile to get through the day… I swear it does. I feel so… I don't know. I just feel like if I told people the reason I do what I do, they'd think it's not really a reason… but it is. It's too much for me…"

"I felt that way too." She hugs me just a little tighter and I let her. "I felt like… if I told people… 'Hey, I cut myself because my parents got a divorce and my dad's in jail.' They wouldn't understand. But if I told them the reason why they got a divorce and the reason why my dad's in jail… they'd understand… but I don't want to tell that."

"…You can tell me. I won't tell anyone…" I wipe some more of her tears. "You can trust me."

"…I tell you and you tell me?"

"Deal."

She clears her throat free of all the gunk that gathered up back there from crying. "My dad's a fucking drunk, okay? Like… a real bad drunk." I try to keep a straight face, try not to cry for her. She's not crying so I won't either. I really didn't know… "He lost all his jobs because he couldn't function without booze. He came home one night and started breaking plates and cups and stuff because my mom didn't have dinner done yet. So my mom told him that she was done and she was filing for divorce. He went ballistic and came after me… because I was the one that was always telling my mom to leave him, so he thought it was my fault. But anyway, he came after me but my brother stepped in the way and took all of his punches for me. My mom called the cops and they took him away and I haven't seen him since that night." She sighs. "I know that's nothing… compared to what some people have to go through… but it's something. You know… to have an alcoholic dad that would pass out on the couch after he just got done bashing your teeth in. Or the fact that you couldn't stop it, because your mom was the only defense you had but she had to work…" Again, she sighs. "I know that's nothing… being abused by your dad… but it was enough."

"…I'm so sorry, Leah." I scoot over closer to her and squeeze her TIGHT. "…And you're right… it is something."

She wipes away her own tears, fixes her hair and lifts her chin up. _She's so strong for that. If it were me, I'd still be reeling. She's so strong to be able to pull herself together like that… I definitely see her in a different light. _"Yeah… so that's my story…that Steph and Heather don't know, because I don't want them to know that I was my dad's punching bag for a few years." She fixes her hair some more. "…What's your story?"

I just lay my arm across Leah's waist and keep hugging her before I start to talk. _At least you were never abused by anyone. Nobody ever really hit you. I don't know how I'd fare if someone was abusing me. Leah's so strong… I really would've never guessed. She looks so… perfect and poised, though. I guess you really never know what people are hiding on the inside… _"My mom left me… at a fire station when I was two weeks old. She never wanted me. My gram took me in, until she died last month, of course. I went to a foster home, I was raped, I'm here and I'm in pieces. The usual…" I try to shrug off my demons just like Leah shrugged hers off.

"…You know what, Jo?"

"What?"

"…Me and you are gonna stick together."

I must admit that I never expected to find myself bonding on this level with LEAH. Leah, the bitch. Leah, the superficial cheerleader. Leah, that never invited me anywhere with her at the beginning of the school year. Leah Murphy… the most popular freshman in our class. _I also never expected to like her as much as I realize that I do. I really, really, really like Leah. I think we bonded tonight… on a totally different level. _"Yeah… we are." I nod my head, agreeing with her on that.

* * *

**Sat, Nov 8, 2013**

**11:27 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **How was your night?

**Me: **great. yours?

**Alex: **It was fine. I'm glad u had fun. What r u doing today?

**Me: **nothing, i don't think. about to go back to bed bc i didn't fall asleep til like 5:30 at heather's last night :/

**Alex: **Oh yeah u need to sleep lol. U want to come over later tho?

**Me: **idk if i'll be allowed since i spent the night over heather's last night. mom might just want me to stay home for the night. she doesn't want me to have too much freedom.

**Alex: **Oh cool. I understand that.

**Me: **shane's having leah over at like 3:00 though. you can come over at 3. mom's working from 2:30-11:00 tonight so we kind of have the house to ourselves. as long as i don't tell on shane for having leah over, he wont tell on me for having you over.

**Alex: **u sure?

**Me: **yeah. come over at 3. you know where shane lives?

**Alex: **Down the street from where u used to lvie right?

**Alex: ***live

**Me: **yeah. the only bricked house on the street. you can't miss it.

**Alex: **alright so I'll see u at 3

**Me: **see you.

* * *

"SHANE, NICK AND MATT! COME EAT THIS FOOD BEFORE I DO! I SWEAR TO GOD I'LL EAT IT ALL AND NOT LEAVE YOU GUYS ANYTHING MORE THAN A CRUMB!" I stand at the bottom of the steps and scream up them. Their brunch has been done for like ten minutes now. Mom didn't feel like cooking this morning, so she just left it up to me to cook. I fried bacon, scrambled eggs and made pancakes and they'd BETTER eat it. "IF YOU'RE NOT DOWN HERE IN THREE SECONDS I SWEAR I'M EATING IT ALL!" As soon as I say that, all I hear is the sound of stampeding footsteps running down. Shane's the first one downstairs.

"Calm down, J." He pulls on my ponytail and darts into the kitchen. Immediately, he starts sizing up the plates I made. He takes the plate with the biggest pancakes and takes it to the living room. We don't ever eat at the table when his mom isn't home. She already went off to work, at around1:30 so since she's not here we'll eat in the living room. "So are you gonna tell me about the sleepover last night? I asked Leah about it and she said that it wasn't anything special… but she also said that she has a newfound love for you. So if it wasn't special, how did she decide she loves you?"

"You really do ask too many questions sometimes." I sit my own plate down on the coffee table and start cutting up my pancake just as Nick and Matt both walk through the living room and into the kitchen. "You hate when things aren't your business." I stuff a piece of pancake in my mouth. "All we did was talk and watch a movie. It really wasn't anything special. Just a bunch of girl talk." I swallow my food. "Oh, by the way, Alex is coming over in a little while. You invited Leah, so I invited him…"

"Alright, but Leah and Alex is IT. I'm not trying to get grounded for having a bunch of people over here while my mom's not home." He's already done with his pancakes, which blows my mind. "Speaking of Alex… why didn't you tell me that you fucked him? Why didn't you tell me?"

"…Because I didn't?" I put my fork down and just look at him. "…Why, what did Leah tell you?" I'm already irritated. That's not Leah's business to tell. "I swear, I can't tell anybody anything. Everybody wants to run their fucking mouths about shit."

"Leah didn't tell me anything. It was a long bus ride to Arbor Heights yesterday…"

"…Oh my fucking god." I roll my eyes and shove my plate away. "I seriously can't do shit without him blabbing all about it to the football bus. WHAT THE FUCK DID HE SAY, SHANE?" I snatch my phone up off the coffee table and angrily find Alex's contact. "That's so fucking annoying, I swear. Stop telling people my fucking business… oh my god."

"J, CHILL OUT." He snatches my phone out of my hand. "He didn't really say anything. We were all talking about our girls and he just made a comment about it. It's not that big of a deal… he really didn't even say anything major. I said something about Leah, and he said 'Jo, too'. That's all. I just assumed… it's not that big of a deal. Don't trip."

"What did he agree to? Obviously whatever it was, it was major enough to get a reaction out of you. What did he say?"

"Why would I tell you? You're all pissed off already, why would I piss you off more?"

"Because I swear to god I'll kill you if you don't tell me."

"I'm not telling you, Jo."

"…If you don't tell me, I'm kicking you in your balls. So just get ready."

"Okay, and I'll kick you in your crotch. An eye for an eye."

"You won't."

"Try me."

I stand up off the couch and walk over to where he's sitting on the loveseat. He closes his legs and puts his hands up. "Jo, chill! You're such a bully!" I raise my fist at him, making him flinch. "You big ass bully!" He covers his face with his arms to defend himself. I punch him once in his head. "Quit!" I punch him in his gut. "BULLY!" I start bitch-slapping him in his face every time he says my name. "I'm not telling you!"

I bitch-slap him in his cheek again. "Tell me! Tell me, you little bitch!" I slap him in his head. "Nut-punch it is…" I bawl my fist up to punch him in his balls but before I can actually do it, his own fist collides with my crotch…hard. "OW, SHANE!" I drop down to my knees, holding myself like I have to pee. "OOOOWWWWWW…. WHAT THE HELL!"

"You were bullying me! You were about to punch me in my nuts! It was self-defense!"

On my knees, I apply pressure to my crotch and scream at him. "THERE'S A BONE THERE! YOU PUNCHED ME IN MY VAGINA BONE! YOU BROKE MY VAGINA!" It's aching and throbbing so badly. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?! THERE'S A BONE THERE!"

"Oh shut up, Jo. I didn't break your vagina bone."

"YES YOU DID!" I innocuously start laughing because I just can't help myself. "You son of a bitch… that really fucking hurt." I poke my lip out. "I'll never pee again!"

"You want me to apologize to it?"

"YES! APOLOGIZE!" I swat him on his leg and make sure it stings. "Then tell me what the fuck was said about me on that damn bus."

"…Dear Jo's Vagina Bone…. I'm sorry for punching you, even though she was gonna hit me in my balls. I didn't mean to break you… if I broke you."

"It doesn't forgive you… bastard." I groan and stand up slowly. "I really think you broke my crotch bone… That really did hurt, Shane… ow…"

"You want me to tell Alex to come over earlier? So he can give you an exam? I mean… he already did that…"

"…HOW THE…. HE TOLD EVERYONE, DIDN'T HE?!"

"…He might have." He holds his hand out to me, offering to help me up. I take his hand and let him pull me securely on my feet. "Me and Avery were really on his ass about it, though. We just asked him if he was nailing you yet… and he said no. And then we called him a pansy… and he said he saw you naked though… and it went from there."

"…He still shouldn't be telling people that." Despite my sore vagina bone, I waddle over to the coffee table and grab my phone. Instead of calling him, like I originally intended on doing, I just decide to text him. If I text him, I won't have the change to scream at him and maybe I'll be able to control my anger a little bit better.

…Maybe, though.

**2:05 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **you should come over right now.

**Alex: **okay why tho?

**Me: **because I have to talk to you about something.

**Alex: **Am I in trouble?

**Me: **yes.

**Alex: **Whatever I did I'm sorry

**Me: **we have to talk. just come over.

* * *

**A/N: **I know this chapter was a little bit short, but I didn't have as much time to write this out as I usually do. I have a doctor's appointment early tomorrow morning, so I have to wake up early lol. Sorry about the short chapter! But I promise that tomorrow's update will be a really good one. It'll be at least 7,000 words & I will go into details about the argument that Jo and Alex are about to have. Alas, this chapter was supposed to end on a funny note between Jo and Shane. Sort of…. the calm before the storm.

Hope you enjoyed it, & sorry again for the short length!


	35. Not Tonight

"What do you want to talk to me about?" Is his greeting to me. No "hello", no "I missed you", no kiss, no hug. Just a very prominent, "Let's get down to business" greeting. I'm not sure if that pisses me off any more than it annoys me. Channeling every ounce of frustration I have towards him in my body, I swing the screen door open quickly to let him in. I'm really trying not to blow up on him right now but I'm actually struggling with it. He steps inside the house, kicking his shoes off and I slam the door behind him. "Are you seriously just going to keep slamming things instead of just telling me what I did so I can fix it?" He barrels his neck around the soft corner and waves at both Shane and Leah who are sitting on the couch. "Hey Ross… Murphy." I slap his hand down from the waving position it was in and widen my eyes to let him know that I'm severely irritated with him. I'll start with the lesser things. I'll start with the things that I'm just a little bit bothered by before I lay on the real reason I called him over.

"What time did I text you and tell you to come over, Alex?" I cross my arms over my chest and shift my weight onto my back foot. I pucker my lips into a kissing motion and shift them off to the side. He looks at me with an innocent look in his piercing brown/green eyes and a slight grimace on his face. My irritation rises up a level due to his silence. "Well?! What time did I text you and tell you that I wanted you to come over ASAP? What time was that?!"

He harmlessly shrugs his shoulders and looks down at the ground, pretending to be real interested in the fat golden retriever dog that's lying at my feet. "…I dunno… 2:00? Somewhere around there…" He shoves his hand into his pocket and mumbles, "Hold on." I slap at his hand rather hard and get him to leave it alone.

"Don't look at your phone, look at me." I demand. I cross my arms again and bite the inside of my cheek to bear with the fact that I'm so irritated that I might just reach out and punch him in his jaw. "I texted you at 2:00 and told you to bring your ass over here… WHY DID IT TAKE YOU UNTIL..." I vehemently snatch his phone from the pocket he was just digging into and check the time on it since my phone's in the living room. "WHY DID IT TAKE YOU UNTIL 3:15 TO GET HERE?" I squeeze his phone so hard that I hear the sounds of the glass beginning to crack before I just let it go. "You don't live an hour away. There's NO WAY IN HELL that Leah should've gotten here before you did. Shane called Leah AT 3:00 to come over, and she was here by 3:10. It's 3:15 and YOU'RE JUST NOW GETTING HERE."

"I wanted to eat something, take a shower and put on some clean clothes before I came…" He doesn't even pay attention to the fact that I just put a crack in his phone with my bare hands. He just looks at me with soft, childlike eyes. I'm not calming down by any means, though.

"DID I SAY TO EAT, TAKE A SHOWER AND PUT ON CLEAN CLOTHES BEFORE YOU CAME OVER HERE?! NO I DID NOT. I TOLD YOU TO GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE BECAUSE I NEEDED TO TALK TO YOU… DIDN'T I?"

"Look Jo… can we take this out—"

I push him hard so that his back falls into a corner beside the door. "SHUT UP! I'M TALKING, YOU'RE NOT." I raise up on my tiptoes so that I'm eye to eye with him. "…You… TOLD people? AFTER I JUMPED ON YOU FOR TELLING THEM THAT I WAS SCARED…. YOU TOLD THEM WHAT WE DID?!"

"I really don't think that Ross and Murphy need to hear this. We should take this outside…"

"I DON'T GIVE A CRAP… ABOUT SHANE AND LEAH." I stand in front of him so that he surely can't go anywhere without going through me. "WHAT I CARE ABOUT IS THE FACT THAT YOU CAN'T KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT ABOUT ANYTHING. IT'S LIKE… ALL YOU WANT TO DO IS BLAB ABOUT WHAT WE DO IN THE BED….EVEN IF IT'S NOTHING." I push my index finger into the bulk of his chest. "You don't get to tell people about me. You don't get to run your mouth about the things I let you do to me. I don't know… WHY you feel so entitled to tell your little groupies about the things that we do, but I DON'T LIKE IT. So STOP."

"Whoa, I don't know… what you heard, but I didn't tell them anything…"

"And now you're lying." I roll my eyes and throw my hands up in the air. "I ALREADY KNOW THAT YOU TOLD SO DON'T LIE TO ME." I take a couple steps away from him because I really feel like I might hit him and I don't want to. "…I get it, okay? I get that… I get that you boys feel the need to brag about every little thing that you do to your girlfriends. I get that it's just in your guy genes or whatever. But… You could've at least WAITED, Alex. The next day?! Really?! Is that how much you respect me?"

"I didn't tell the whole damn bus, though. Just Ross and Avery." He reaches out to touch my shoulder but I shrug him away. "They're my friends. You have friends that you tell about things and so do I. I did NOT tell the whole bus. I wouldn't do that. I really wouldn't do anything like that, and if I knew that telling anybody was going to piss you off, I wouldn't have done it. I didn't think you'd care if I told Shane and Jackson, so I did. But if I knew that it would bug you, I wouldn't have. I would never tell the whole entire freaking bus about that. Not after what you've been through."

_Maybe he has a little bit of a point. You told Steph, Leah and Heather about it the day after it happened. He was just telling his friends. _"So you didn't tell the whole team? You guys didn't have a discussion about it on the bus?"

"We did, but it wasn't the whole team. It was just the three of us." He still has a smug, guilty look on his face. "…I'll tell you everything that we talked about. Can we go somewhere more private, though? I'll tell you everything…"

"…No, you don't have to do that." _I feel like such a raging bitch. I didn't even let him explain himself before I went off on a tirade. That was the most hypocritical thing I've ever done. How did I flip out on him like that when he was just doing the same thing I was doing? I told my friends and he told his… I think I need to get a grip. _"…I'm sorry. I just… I didn't like to think about the fact that my body was the topic of discussion. I thought that you told the whole team. You're right; I don't care that you told Shane and Jackson. I'm sorry… I'm really sorry… about your phone… and about snapping out, but mostly about your phone…"

"It's fine." He reaches out to touch me again and I let him this time. "You don't trust me." I pull myself away from his touch again to look at him and object to what he just said. He quickly silences me by putting his finger over my lips. "You don't trust me, and that's okay. It's okay that you don't trust me. I don't expect you to. But you really need to learn how to trust me. I'm not going to hurt you, Jo. I'll never hurt you…ever. I won't do anything to hurt you. You don't trust me yet but you're gonna learn. I won't hurt you. You mean way too much to me."

"I do trust you." I whisper.

"No you don't. And that's okay. You don't have to. After everything you've been through, you don't have to trust me." He slides my hair away from my forehead and gives me a tender kiss on it. "Why don't you start by trusting that I won't let anything happen to you? Trust that. Trust that the safest place for you to be is with me. Do you trust that?" Hesitantly, I wrap my arms around his waist and squeeze. I nod my head. _He's right. You don't trust him. And you have no reason not to. He is not Jason. He won't hurt you. He never gave you a reason not to trust him. You have to start trusting Alex. _"Do you have somewhere that we can be alone? I _do _want to tell you the things that were said on that bus… and I'd feel better if we had some privacy."

"Um… yeah." I reluctantly let him go and look up towards the steps. "I don't have a room yet. The insurance agent won't let us into my old house to get my furniture out of my old room until Tuesday, so I still don't have a room. Shane's little brothers are going to room together so I can have my own room, but that hasn't happened yet. So we have to go up to Shane's room." I grab his hand and start eagerly running up the steps. I lead him up the steps, down the hallway to the room that Shane and I currently share. Behind us, I shut the door but I don't lock it. I don't want Shane to think we're doing anything major in his room.

"You and Ross share the same bed?" His eyes narrow once he sees that there's only one bed in the room. I think he got the picture, since Shane's black pillow is at the top of the bed and my pink pillow is at the bottom. "Is that even comfortable?"

"No, not really. But it's a place to sleep." I kick my red duffel bag to the side to make room for us to sit down on the floor. I slowly sit myself down on the floor and rest my back up against the base of Shane's bed. Alex sits down beside me. "Sorry about the mess in here." I move a pile of clothes over. "We're supposed to be washing clothes today but you see how far we've gotten…"

"Yes… I do see how far we've gotten…" With a playful smirk on his face, he discreetly reaches over in the pile of clothes on the other side of him and holds up a skimpy pair of my black lace underwear. He dangles them in front of my face by one of his fingers and laughs out loud. "Can I keep these?"

"No, what the hell?!" I snatch them off him and toss them into a dirty clothes pile. "They're dirty and… ew. No, you can't have them. Why would you even want them?" I playfully punch him in his arm. "Seriously though, let me see your phone. I think I cracked it…" I reach into his pocket and grab it. I run my thumb over the tiny crack I put in the corner from squeezing it. "Damn… I'm sorry."

"It's alright. My phone's a piece of shit anyway." He nervously starts wringing his hands. "So um… what was said on the bus…"

"You don't have to tell me. I'm doing this new thing called 'trusting you', and I trust that you didn't say anything to make me look like a whore. I have friends that I told and you were just telling your friends. It's okay. I'm trying to trust you."

"Okay." He agrees to drop the subject and we both just sit there, side by side in silence for the next few moments. He starts twisting his phone in his hands, looking down at the carpet between us. Because I don't know what to say to break the silence just as much as he doesn't know what to say, I run my fingers along the carpet and tap them against the floor. Softly, he clears his throat and turns his head so he's facing forward. "So uh… do you want to talk about it? We kinda haven't talked about it…"

"Talked about what?" I wrinkle my brow and pretend to be intently concentrated on a crack in Shane's wall that I put there by throwing his iPod at it, a couple years back. _I really hope he's not asking me to talk about the Jason thing. I told him that I'd tell him what happened when I'm ready, and I will. I'll tell Alex how everything happened whenever I'm ready. I'll tell him what's going on in the case against him…when I'm ready. I'm not ready yet. I'm not ready. _

"It." Very slyly, he walks his fingers over to the hand that I was just drumming against the carpet and interlocks our fingers.

"…What's it?" _I'm not talking about getting raped today. For ONE DAY, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to even think about it for one freaking day. Just one day. How do I tell him that I'm not talking about it today, without sounding bitchy?_

He looks over at me, but I keep my head facing forward. "Jo." I don't budge. From the corner of my eye, I see his lips turn up into that goofy smile that I love so much. He scoots over towards me just a little bit and sticks his neck way out. "Do you want to talk about it?" His lips push against my cheek, softly. "Or would you rather just relive it?"

My jaw drops, my eyes squint, my eyebrows raise and my head whips to face him so quickly that I probably gave myself whiplash. _I think you're talking about two totally different things here. What the hell is he talking about? _"What are you talking about?"

Again, he scoots closer to me, closing the remaining gap we had between ourselves and tilts his head. "You know what I'm talking about." His voice comes out in a soft mumble before his lips collide with the skin on my neck, sending chills up my spine. _Yep, you were totally on two different pages just a minute ago. Glad you caught up. _And reassuring my thoughts, making sure that I know exactly what he's talking about, his hand slowly creeps up my leg. Past my knee, inching towards the inside of my thigh, stopping at my core. My legs are closed pretty tight, so I part them just a little. "You never did tell me what you really thought about it…" His breath tickles my neck and my eyes drift shut.

I throw my head back and let it rest against the soft part of the mattress we're sitting against. My pesky hair falls over my face and creates a curtain so that he can't see me. I don't think I'm going to bother moving it. I know my hair and I know that it's just going to keep falling where I don't want it, so moving it is pointless. _If you don't want to do this, you'd better say it now. You will NOT cry again. _I reach down and pull his hand from between my legs. I pick my head up, tilt it and lean in to kiss him. He slowly but surely slides his tongue in my mouth, and out of instinct, I softly drag my teeth across it every time it darts in and out of the kiss. I think the whole teeth-on-tongue thing drives him wild, because all of a sudden, he's all aggressive with me.

He pushes me down flat against the floor and climbs on top of my body. The look on his face is a cross between flat-out hunger and desperation. I put my hand on the back of his head and pull his face back down to mine. Since he seems to have liked it so much, I start dragging my teeth across his tongue some more, which makes him even more forceful. His hands make their way to the waistband of my shorts and his fingers shake and wiggle as he frantically tries to untie the drawstrings on them. I guess I must've found one of his turn-ons. It makes sense that I know what drives him crazy. He knows that kissing me on my neck makes me insane and now I know that dragging my teeth across his tongue drives him wild. He pulls out of the kiss quickly and aggressively puts his mouth to the exact spot on my neck that makes me want him. "I need you so bad…" He growls and picks his face up from the spot on my neck. He looks down between my legs to see what he's doing. As soon as he stops trying to do it blindly, the drawstrings of my shorts come undone.

His face buries itself back in my neck and I hold it there, curling all ten of my fingers inside his long, dark brown, shaggy locks. As his tongue works the spot below my ear, his hands are yanking my shorts off. I lift my bottom half up just slightly so he can take them off with ease. "Oh god… I need you too…" I huff in a soft, low, pleasure-induced murmur. One of his hands comes up and files itself through the wavy lengths of my hair while his other hand teases me through my underwear. Mechanically, my back arches just slightly and my mouth drops open. He pulls away from my body a little so he can watch my reactions. Through my hooded eyes, I can see a smirk come across his face. When he seems satisfied, he presses his lips to the mole beside my mouth and goes back to kissing my neck. _I don't think I'm going to go off the deep end this time around. The more I've been thinking about it, the more I realize that I think the reason I became so unsteady the first time we did this was because of his words. I remember what he said the first time I took my shirt off for him. He said "God, you're sexy." …Jason said the same thing to me…_

He untangles his free hand from the lengths of my hair and reaches down to move my long, baggy, oversized sweater out of his way. With the hand that was already occupying me, he slides himself wrist-deep inside my underwear and between my legs. I would totally take off my shirt for him, but the lights are on. If they were off, I'd take it off. I just don't want to risk him seeing my secret. Just like the first time, my chest bucks upwards off the floor and a mollified gasp slips out from the back of my throat when I suddenly feel him inside. Aside from my inaudible moan, the only sound interrupting us is the sound of the doorbell. He stops his hand movements between my legs and looks up at me.

_I could kill him right now. Is he serious right now? SO WHAT THAT THE DOORBELL RANG. _"No….No, don't stop…" I mumble, letting the annoyance seep into the tone of my voice just a little. He kisses me on my lips once more and I bite down on his bottom lip, not enough to hurt him though. Like I told him not to, he stops again. With one final kiss, he trails his lips down my body. A kiss on my collarbone, a kiss on my sweater-covered chest, a kiss on the only part of my stomach that's exposed, a kiss with his tongue playing with my belly ring. He stops before the next spot for him to kiss is between my legs. He slides both his arms up, hooks them around my thighs and pulls my legs further apart and further into his face. _He's gonna… _I wad up my long sleeve and bite down on it just as he kisses the inside part of my thigh. His tongue traces shapes on the inside part, right before my folds. Why is he teasing me like this?

He moves his head over to the main part of me, and at the same time he does that, Shane's door busts open. I know it's nobody but either Shane or Leah, so I'm not even embarrassed as much as I'm PISSED OFF. Simultaneously, Alex steadies himself and I pop my head up from the side of the bed. Shane's standing dead in the doorway and I could seriously kill him with my bare hands right now. "THE DOOR WAS CLOSED, WHICH MEANS I NEED SOME FUCKING PR—"

"I'm so sorry to interrupt whatever's going on here…" He's not even bothered by the fact that he just walked in on what he just walked in on. "I would be pissed if I got interrupted in the middle, but J… you gotta come downstairs."

I grab my pink pillow off the edge of Shane's bed and chuck it at him. "YOU JUST RUINED THE MOOD, GET OUT!" The pillow dies before it can hit Shane but he got the point that I want him out. _I was about to… I was about to… DAMMIT SHANE. And I was really excited about it, too! He was about to go down on me! REALLY?! I could cry right now. _

"J, LUCY'S HERE! You need to come downstairs!"

"….Who?!" Did he really just say what I think he said? I stand up very quickly and scurry around in my now-sticky underwear. I'll change them after I deal with who I think he just said. My slightly sweaty hair is flying and bouncing all over the place with my rushed movements. Alex is just sitting there on the floor, dumbfounded and probably embarrassed. He shouldn't be embarrassed though. I'm glad it was just Shane that walked in on it. I caught him and Leah having phone sex the other night so we're pretty much equal now. "What the fuck is she doing here?" I stuff my feet into a pair of dirty sweatpants since I can't find the shorts that Alex took off me. I lean down and kiss him quickly. "Stay right here. I'll be right back, I promise." I step over him and he gives me a quick slap on my ass. "..I know… and I promise we'll finish this. Let me take care of this." I apologize again before I dash out the bedroom door. Pissed off isn't even the word for how I'm feeling right now.

I quickly run down the steps, all the while snatching my hair up into a high ponytail with the holder I had on my wrist. Leah's standing in the doorway with her ear plugged with one finger and the phone pressed to her other. I turn to her and whisper so I don't interrupt her phone convo. "I was in the middle of having… this is bullshit." Leah just nods her head at me and keeps babbling on the phone. She seems panicked.

I grab the doorknob and yank it open. Descending down the steps is a less dumbfounded Alex. I step out onto the porch and yeah… it's really her. She's really here…and she brought a whole crew. This isn't going to take long. It's not going to take long because I said it's not going to take long. I have unfinished business that I want to finish. "…Yeah?" I greet her.

She's dressed in sweatpants, a t-shirt, sneakers and her hair is pulled back. Behind her, some girls are dressed in the same manner. One girl has her cell phone out, though. She puts her hands on her hips and steps back to "look" at me. "What was that shit you were talking on Facebook last night?"

_Is she serious? I really don't have time for this. _She's referring to the little Facebook argument we had last night. I'm not friends with her on Facebook, but Heather is. Heather showed me one of Lucy's statuses and she said that she missed Alex. So of course, I commented on it and told her to shut up and it was a whole big argument. It was pretty stupid, actually and it only happened because me, Steph, Leah and Heather were all bored and didn't feel like going to sleep. I blocked it out without even trying, that's how irrelevant the whole thing was. "Nothing." I take another step out onto the porch and keep my hands to my side. Leah and Shane both step out onto the porch with me but Alex is still inside the house.

"Leah, this has nothing to do with you. I don't have a problem with you. This is between me and Jo." Lucy rolls her neck and calls Leah out.

"I totally get that." Leah puts her hands up to indicate that she doesn't want anything to do with it. "But just know that you guys aren't jumping her. This has nothing to do with me, but I'm not going to let you guys jump her. Everything's all good. I called Stephanie and Heather both over here, just in case. We don't want problems with you, Lucy. But Jo's not getting jumped and that's that."

"Whatever." She puts her hand up to Leah and turns her attention back to me. "So what was that shit you were talking on Facebook last night? You said you were gonna fuck me up? You said that we could meet up, and then when I tried to schedule it, you chickened out? Talk shit to my face."

"I don't have anything to say to you." I take a step away from her and just look elsewhere. Out of nervous habit, I bring my hand up and start biting on my thumbnail. I'm not a confrontational person at all. I hate confrontation and getting called out like this is really… freaking me out a bit. "All this is over Alex and it's bullshit because he's with me and not with you, so I don't have anything else to say to you." I turn to her recording friend. "So you can turn the camera off, and you can all go home. Because I don't have anything to say."

"But you had a whole lot to say on Facebook last night, right?!" She starts getting loud with me and I just roll my eyes up to the ceiling. "And it's not even over Alex. Why would I fight you over something I already had? It's strictly because you have a smart ass mouth and WE DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER."

"…First of all, who said anything about fighting over Alex? I said if I was gonna fight you, it would be because of what you said to me over those text messages. And second of all, I don't have a problem with you. YOU DON'T LIKE ME, and you THINK I give a shit when I really don't. I don't care that you don't like me. So like I said… I'm not fighting with you over Alex. I already have Alex. You want him and I have him, so what's the really the issue?"

"I ALREADY FUCKED HIM OVER TEN TIMES! YOU DIDN'T EVEN FUCK HIM ONCE!"

"Okay, and what's your point?" Even though she's getting loud with me, my voice remains calm. "So you had sex with him… big whoop. I don't care. I'm not arguing with you."

"So now you're all holier-than-thou and you won't argue with me, but you had a lot of shit to say on Facebook last night?" I look past her because I'm more interested in the car that just pulled up. Heather and Stephanie get out of it and the car speeds away. Leah runs off the porch to greet them two. "Fuck you. You're such an immature little freshman."

"Okay." I nod and keep biting my thumbnail.

"Why are you so quiet?! Huh?! Why are you so quiet?!" One of her friends starts screaming at me too. "You were pretty loud over the internet, and now you wanna be quiet?! You're a pussy! You won't say shit to nobody's face!"

"I'm not arguing with any of you." The door to Shane's house opens up again and Alex steps out on the porch finally. I don't even acknowledge him because he's irrelevant to the whole situation. Lucy sure notices him though.

"She won't argue 'cause she's nothing but a bitch." The friend of Lucy's that's recording takes her turn to have a jab at me.

"…No, I just don't argue. Period." Steph, Heather, Leah, Shane and Alex are all standing behind me as if I need them or something. "I'm not an arguer. I'm not gonna argue, you'll never catch me arguing. I don't argue. The energy I waste arguing can be put into throwing a punch. So unless any of you are talking about throwing punches, I'm not arguing." I keep biting my fingernails.

Lucy rolls her eyes at me. "I don't hit first, so… if you don't want to fight then we're not gonna fight. I'm not gonna beat your ass for free. You're sitting here saying that you don't want to fight me, so that's that. You're real tough over Facebook but in person, you're a pussy. No wonder nobody cares about you. No wonder you can't keep a steady home. Nobody wants to be bothered with a big ass pussy."

"Lucy, you don't have to s—" Alex starts talking from behind me but I put my hand up to silence him.

"Truth be told Lucy, you're nothing a pussy either. You were talking about how you're gonna beat Jo up and all that stuff, but all you've done was insult her. I don't think you really want to fight…" Steph starts talking from behind my back too.

"I do want to fight her! But she's not even mad! I'm just trying to get her mad! I don't want to beat her up without her fighting back!" Lucy takes a step towards me and I take one step back.

"You don't have to get me mad. I'm already mad." I state, matter-of-factly. "Don't fucking talk shit on my family. You don't know me."

"AWWW… Orphan girl has feelings!" The friend with the phone that's recording says. I flick her off.

Lucy laughs. "Oh, so you don't like it when I talk about how nobody wants you? Obviously you're not mad enough. Like I said, I don't start fights… I finish them." I bawl my hands up into fists. I really don't want to fight. I don't want to fight her. I have class, and classy girls don't fight over boys. I'm not fighting her. I'm not gonna let her piss me off. The last time I fought a girl, I almost killed her. Lucy turns to her friends and laughs some more. "She thinks that just because she beat up a fat chick I'm supposed to be afraid of her." She takes her hair out of the ponytail she had it in and turns away. "Let's go. This bitch isn't worth it."

"…Well just because she has a smart mouth, and you obviously won't hit her Lus…" The friend that's not recording steps over to me and out of NOWHERE, she punches me square in my face. "Doesn't mean I won't hit her for you. Come on… we can leave now."

I bring my hand up and touch my cheek. She doesn't hit very hard, but I taste a little bit of blood in my mouth. Well again, at least I can say I tried to stay civil. _Don't show your ass in front of Alex. Go ahead and get her, but contain yourself. _I take three steps forward and that's all it takes. Have you ever had an out-of-body experience? I have. Have you ever had something happen to where you literally just leave your body and you watch it happen… as if it's not happening to you? Well I don't know who Jo is right now, but she's definitely not me. I'm watching her in action.

_I grab her hair back with a firm grip and pull her towards me. "DON'T YOU EVER IN YOUR FUCKING LIFE HIT ME WHILE I'M NOT LOOKING! BITCH ARE YOU CRAZY?!" All I do is hit her once in the face and she's down on the ground. I grab her by her hair and punch her in the crown of her head. The girl has her head down so I can't get her face like I want to. Out of the clear blue, I feel my own hair get pulled back and my own face being punched. And that's when I officially leave my body and black out. I don't even think about anything that happens next. I just do it._

Lucy starts punching me in my back, so I take a second off from beating up the bitch that snuck me to get her. When I'm done with the ballsy one that snuck me, Heather, Leah and Steph all stand in front of her and scream at all of Lucy's little posse. "NO JUMPING! THIS IS ALL FAIR FIGHTING! YOU GUYS AREN'T JUMPING HER!"

I don't even pay attention to them. Lucy's trying to fight me back but I won't let her. My anger isn't even directed at her, it's directed at the fact that her friend snuck and hit me in my face when I wasn't looking. But whatever. I already beat that bitch's ass so I might as well beat Lucy's ass while I'm at it. "I'LL FUCKIN' KILL YOU!" I literally punch her into the corner of Shane's porch until she can't go anywhere else besides down. _Think about what she said about your mom. She said nobody wants you. That was disrespectful. _The only defense Lucy has is pulling my ponytail. Eventually, the holder rips and my mounds and mounds of hair come tumbling down. I'm way too pretty to be doing this. "Get off my fucking hair!" Finally, she's down on the ground and I get down on top of her, straddling her. She's pulling my hair so hard that I can't move my head. "GET OFF MY HAIR!" Because I can't move my head, she's able to kick me in my stomach and switch our positions so now she's on top of me.

"COME ON, JO! GET UP!" Leah screams from across the porch.

Lucy's hovering over me with a death-grip on my hair, punching me in my jaw. "YOU WANNA GET SMART ON FACEBOOK, BITCH?! YOU WANNA GET SMART ON FACEBOOK?!"

"JO, GET UP! GET UP!" Shane's in my ear, clapping at me like I'm a dog.

I'm way too classy to be fighting like this, but I'll be damned if I let this girl beat me up. So I take some strength that's been lying dormant in my body for a while and roll her over so that I'm on top of her. I have way too much hair, because she just grabs it again. "Let my fucking hair go, bitch!" _You gotta stand up. You gotta stand up. If you stand up, she won't have your hair. _I push her face to the side and pull myself up off the ground. _Naked pictures to Alex, texting him telling him she misses him, posting pictures of him on Facebook, TALKING ABOUT YOUR FAMILY. She needs it… she needs it bad. _I push her into the corner she's already lying in and start kicking her because if I kneel down to punch her, all she's gonna do is grab my hair. I brace myself on the railing of Shane's porch and stand on top of her with one foot on her abdomen and my free foot stomping down on her face. "IF YOU EVER TALK ABOUT MY FUCKING FAMILY AGAIN… IF YOU EVER FUCKING…" She's covering her face with her arms and I don't like that. So, because I can now that her hands are occupied by covering her face, I throw a couple deep punches to her hands to get her to move them. "MOVE YOUR HANDS, BITCH!" Once I finally get her to move them, I stomp on her face a couple more times.

"JO! JO, STOP IT! YOU'RE GONNA KILL HER! THAT'S ENOUGH!" Alex wraps his arms around my waist and pulls but Shane yanks Alex away. "ROSS, LET ME GET HER OFF!"

"DON'T TOUCH HER! TRUST ME, DON'T TOUCH HER!" Shane yells back.

Lucy is literally crying blood right now, but I'm still… seeing red. "DON'T EVER FUCKIN… TEXT…" This corner isn't cutting it for me. I grab her hair and drag her across the porch and down the steps to Shane's front lawn because I need more room. She's crying and I can hear it but I don't care. "MY FUCKING BOYFRIEND'S PHONE!"

"JO, STOP! STOP IT! STOP IT JO!" Alex has my arm in his hand.

"Alex, I'm telling you to get off her! GET OFF HER!"

Shane warned him and he didn't listen. "GET OFF ME!" I swing a fist back at Alex but I don't connect with anything. "I TOLD YOU I DIDN'T WANT TO FIGHT YOU! BUT YOU KEPT…" I get on top of her again and grab her by her shirt. Her hair is sticking to her bloody face. I punch her square in the bridge of her nose. "FUCKING… BITCH…." I slam her head down into the pavement. Two of Lucy's friends try to get me off her now.

"Guys, stop! Stop her! She's killing her!" One of her friends is crying.

"J… J…. J!" Shane grabs my arms.

"ROSS, STOP HER! SHE'S KILLING HER!"

"J, LOOSEN UP! LOOSEN UP!"

"JO, STOP!" Everybody's voices are just mushing together.

"Guys, please get her off her! She's gonna kill her!"

"I THINK SHE'S DEAD!"

"Oh, Lus… Lus… Lus are you okay?"

"JO GET OFF!"

"JOSEPHINE!"

"OKAY, OKAY THAT'S ENOUGH!"

"J…J!"

Alex's arms wrap themselves around me so tight that I can't move, let alone breathe. "CALM DOWN… THAT'S ENOUGH! THAT'S ENOUGH!"

I'm STILL seeing red. I dig my nails into his wrist. "GET OFF ME! LET ME GO!"

"NO! YOU'RE GONNA KILL THE GIRL! LOOK AT HER! YOU'RE GONNA KILL HER!"

Shane helps Lucy up off the ground. She's walking, isn't she? She's moving, isn't she? She's breathing, right? She's not dead. Let me at her. Just one more… one more. "Now get out of here! She's never done anything like this before and I don't know if she can stop! I told you to get out of here before I even went to go get her! Don't come back! It's your fault! You did this!" Shane walks over to me and puts his hands on my cheeks. "J, it's okay… it's okay… it's okay… it's okay…" He turns back to Lucy and her friends. "GET OUT OF HERE! SHE'S NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE AND IT'S HARD FOR HER TO STOP!" My senses are coming back…

My face hurts. My jaw, right where the girl punched me is aching. My scalp is sore from her pulling on my hair. My hands have so much blood on them that they're not even white anymore. I taste blood in my mouth and feel blood coming out of my own nose. My shirt is covered in blood. My pants are covered in blood and grass stains. Lucy is limping away, wailing and sobbing. Her friends have to help her walk. The friend that snuck and hit me while I wasn't looking has a black eye and a bloody mouth. Both the friends are crying right with Lucy. Well on the bright side…

I didn't kill her.


	36. Repercussions

"Mom?! Mom, I know we're not supposed to bother you while you're at work, but you HAVE to come home. Mom, please come home. It's… It's Jo, mom. She's not okay…" Shane is hysterically babbling on the phone to his mother while Leah, Steph and Heather all try to get me to calm down. I can't calm down. I can't calm down knowing what I just did to Lucy and her friend. I swear I didn't want to fight. I said that. How many times did I say it? Why wouldn't they just listen to me? I never wanted to fight. They made me. "She's freaking out right now and I can't get her to stop. Can you at least talk to her?" Alex has his ear pressed against Shane's phone, trying to listen in on the conversation. I never wanted to fight. I was perfectly fine with letting them leave… but her friend hit me. What was I supposed to do?

"It's over, Jo. The fight? It's over… it's over." Steph kneels down in front of the couch that I'm sitting at and holds my hands. "You can calm down now. Let us go clean you off. You're all bloody and gross. You can calm down."

"Get off me, please. Steph, lemme go." My level of anger is still way too high for her to even be touching me right now. Leisurely, Steph lets go of my hands like I asked. I conceal my face inside my hands and rock slowly back and forth. I cannot calm down. I just can't. I'm still exceedingly irritated with everything that just went on and I just really don't want to hurt Steph next. Completely against my own will, my hands just start quivering and I can't control them. Somebody puts their arm around my shoulders and I shrug it off. I grab a handful of my hair and squeeze it. _This is not my fault. It's totally not my fault. I said that I didn't want to fight. I said that over and over and over again. I didn't even provoke them. I didn't get smart, I didn't get loud, I didn't argue. I was even going to let them leave. I said that I didn't want to fight… _I let the clumps of my hair go for a moment, and then grip them up again. I'm trying so hard to get ahold of my emotions but I seriously can't.

"Let us clean you up. It's okay… you won." Leah's voice is dead inside my ear. I snuffle and take a deep breath. I slightly move my hands over my eyes and the tears come emitting out of my eyes. _Winning is the last thing I'm worried about right now, Leah. I could care less if I won or lost that fight, even though I know for a fact that I won. The fact is that I already have charges pressed against me for fighting and I just went and fought again. I'm already doing community service to pay off a fine that I have. What if Lucy presses charges against me again? I'd press charges on myself. I STOMPED ON HER FACE! _I inhale a jagged breath and my chest hiccups with the fact that I'm crying big, crocodile, frustrated tears. "Are you crying? Don't cry, Jo… don't cry… it's okay. It's not your fault. She was asking for it."

I can't just keep losing control like that. I swear I didn't even want it to go that far. I didn't mean to hurt her that badly, but I was just so mad._ And you don't even feel sorry for it. You don't feel any remorse. You're not sorry. You're just worried you're gonna have charges pressed against you. You're not even sorry. _I feel bad that I stepped on her face like that, don't get me wrong. But she really was asking for it. She came over to MY house, asking for a fight. The way I see it, I was well within my right to fight with her. She came to my HOUSE, for crying out loud. I feel bad for standing on top of her and stomping down on her face. I feel bad for not stopping when I clearly knew that she was done fighting me back. But I don't feel bad for actually fighting her. _But the whole thing is that you didn't want to fight. You stood at the total opposite end of the porch. You even backed away when she stepped towards you. You said you didn't want to fight. But her friend just HAD to hit you… _"She's gonna press charges on me…" My jaw quakes uncontrollably and my voice is just so hoarse and filled with tears. "I'm gonna get in so much trouble…"

Heather tries to hand me a sandwich bag full of ice but I refuse it. "You shouldn't get in trouble for anything. She came to your territory and called you out. And her friend threw the first punch and then they tried to jump you. You had every right to beat her up like that. If she couldn't handle it, she shouldn't have started it with you."

Leah takes the bag of ice off Heather and tries to press it gently against my jaw but I smack her hand away. "Heather's right. You can't just show up at somebody's doorstep and expect them to just be chill when you decide to throw punches. It's not your fault and you shouldn't get into trouble for that. She came and got what she asked for."

"SHE DIDN'T ASK FOR ME TO STOMP ON HER FACE!" I throw my hands out in exasperation and just shake my head at the three of them. They can't condone what I did. I run my fingers through my hair and hold my head with my hand. "That's not even the point." Snickering, almost full-blown laughing, I shake my head some more. "I can't control myself when I get mad like that." My laughter is purely out of nervousness and slight cluelessness. I have no idea what else to do besides laugh. "And I knew that. I fucking knew that. That's why I told her that I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to fight… I swear to god I didn't want to fight. But I'm not a fucking punk. I'm not just gonna let somebody punch me in the face and get away with it…"

"You did what you were supposed to do, Jo." Steph holds my hands down while Heather forces a bottle of water to my lips. "…We were all about to jump in, but we saw that you didn't need any help. You took them both down." Steph's mouth curves up into a soft smile. "The way you dragged her off the porch, though. You dragged her off the porch by her hair! Jo, you're cutthroat."

"And I swear you never stopped punching her in her head the entire time. You had her crawling on the ground like a dog and you were punching her in her head." Heather tilts the water bottle upwards and I take a sip of it. Ew… it tastes like blood. "You're so ruthless. This is why we're friends…isn't it, guys?"

"Hell yeah." Leah holds the ice against my jaw. "I'd hate to be your enemy. You'd whoop my ass in a heartbeat and I wouldn't even try to fight back. Look on the bright side…" She peels the ice away to have a look at the bruising. "Nobody will fuck with you again after they see what you did to Lucy. You're the shit."

"I don't want people to be afraid of me, guys. That doesn't solve anything." I tilt my head to the side so Leah can put the ice where my jaw really hurts. "Thanks for trying to cheer me up, but it doesn't change the fact that I just brutally beat the girl up." I look up at Shane and Alex. Shane's still on the phone and Alex is still trying to listen. Heather tunes her nose up at the blood all over my sweater and starts the process of taking it off of me. I cooperate with her by sliding my arm out of the arm hole and helping her weave my hair through the head hole. My hair topples down in waves to cover my chest.

"The whole time she was pulling your hair, I just kept praying to god that she wouldn't rip it out." Steph stands up and takes all of my hair into her hands. "Ask Leah. The whole time, I was just sitting there like 'Don't rip her hair out. Don't rip her hair out. Not her hair.'" She starts brushing through it with her fingers.

"Blood stains are hard to get out. You should probably throw this shirt away. It's ruined." Heather bawls up my sweater and tosses it to the side. "…Did she bite you? On your boob?" She pulls at the cup of my bra and exposes a circular mark that definitely resembles bite marks. It's starting to bruise already. "What is she… a vampire? Jo, she bit your boob!"

"Oh, would you look at that?" I look down at it and poke it with my index finger. It doesn't hurt or anything. "I didn't even feel it. It was probably when I was on top of her and she was trying to get me off. I didn't notice." I shrug my shoulders and look down at my feet. My big toenail is bleeding pretty profusely because I fought her barefoot. "I'm actually going to go take a shower guys. Hand me my shirt, Heather."

"Why? It's ruined…" She picks up the ball of sweater and hands it to me. I unravel it and start shoving my hands and arms back through it to put it on. "I thought you were going to take a shower…"

"I am."

"So then why are you putting clothes back on if you're just getting ready to take them back off?"

"Because nobody wants to see me topless." I pull the sweater down so that it's aligned with my body and stand up from the couch. "I'll be back in a few minutes." I wrap my hand around the railing and start going up the steps. _It's like Heather wants Alex to see my secret. She takes my shirt off right in front of him and then she questions me about why I put it back on? It's like she wants him to see… _I huff out a deep breath of relief and jog up to the top of the steps. I go straight into Shane's room and shut the door behind me. I go over to his bathroom door and go inside. I lean with my back against the wall and slide down until I'm sitting in a knees-up position. _Okay, you're alone. Go ahead._

I lean up and take my back up off the wall and pull my shirt back over my head. I slam my head against the wall and close my eyes. What just happened? What really just went on? _It was amazing, at first. I was about to take it to the next level with Alex and then just… it got all bad. _I don't think I was fully over being pissed at Alex. Maybe that's why it was so easy for me to go off on Lucy the way I did. But I did try to restrain myself. I really did try. I tried to let her go… but it just didn't work. _You have to stop blowing up like that. Start taking your anger pills again. Start taking your pills. _I bring my wrist up into my vision and stare at the busted-open cuts on it. I'm not sure when the cuts got broken open but I don't really care. They're bleeding like I just cut them and they won't stop. I'm glad nobody noticed through the fact that my entire body was bloody, though. I stand up and walk over to the mirror. My face is a bloody mess. I can't really see much of anything through the blood so I'll assess the damage after I get out of the shower. I walk over to Shane's shower and start the water.

I grab a fresh towel and a fresh washcloth out of his cupboard and put them on the sink. I peel the rest of my bloody clothes off my body and throw my old towel and my old washcloth into the hamper. That's exactly the reason I blew up so bad on Lucy and her friends. I was still pissed at Alex for being late and for the whole bus incident, I was even more pissed off that Shane interrupted us in the middle of something, and I was pushed over the edge by her comments about my family. It's not like I wouldn't have blown up anyway, though. As everybody already knows, I have a pretty foul temper. I pull the shower curtain open and step inside the hot water spray.

I tilt my head backwards to I can get my hair wet. As I run my hands through it, it's coming out. From her pulling it, probably. I put my head down so the water can touch on the base of my neck. The water that's rushing down the drain is a bright shade of pink from all the blood that's coming off my body. I turn around so the front of my body is facing the spray. I cup my hands together and gather some water up inside them, then splash it on my face. The cuts on my wrist are burning from being exposed to the water but I bear with it. I try to keep them pretty clean, for the most part. Isn't it strange how I can be disgusting enough to actually take a blade to my skin, but I care enough to keep the cuts clean so they don't get infected? _Don't do it. You don't need to do it. Plus, you told Leah that you would really try to stop. Did you lie to Leah? _Yeah, I think I did.

I reach over inside the shower caddy that's hanging on the side wall of the shower and pick up one of the razors that Shane's mom gave me to shave my legs. I have a feeling that if she knew what I actually do with the blades in the razors, she'd refrain from giving them to me. I wrap my fingers around the handle of the razor. I don't have enough time to actually extract the blade from the top of the razor, so I just tilt the razor at an awkward length and hold it to the wounded, tender skin on my left palm. I'm at the point that I don't have anywhere to cut that doesn't already have more than a few slices on it, so I'm going to have to cut over pre-existing ones. I've never cut with an actual razor before… I'm scared, but the feeling of desperation that I have in the pit of my stomach is far more consuming than the fear I'm feeling.

I close my eyes and feel a tingle race up my back and all the way to my temple. I push the top of the razor down with my index finger and drag it downwards. Oh god, it stings. It stings… it stings bad. It's never hurt this bad before. I drop the razor into the pink water below and bite my lip. I open my eyes and look down at the mess I just made. _Oh my god, there's so much blood! What did you just do?! _Panicking, I hold my stinging wrist underneath the water so the blood will wash away. It's coming out quicker than the water can wash it away though. I pull my palm away from the spray and push on it. _Stop bleeding… stop bleeding… stop bleeding. _The whole shower reeks of my blood right now. It smells like rust and salt. I take my fingers away from pushing on it. A deep, dark crimson red bubble emerges. The bubble gets bigger, bigger, bigger… pops. I grab my washcloth and push it against it. _Why won't it stop?! It usually stops by now! Oh god, what did I do? What have I done?_

I reach up with my healthy hand and grab a washcloth that's hanging up on the ledge of the shower curtain rod. I switch out my washcloth for the random one that I just grabbed. _Hurry up and wash yourself so you can get out. _Tying the random rag in a knot around my wrist, I see the blood starting to seep through. I bring the wrist up to my mouth and tighten the knot with my teeth. It should hold until I wash up. I lather up my rag with soap and start washing off my body. My ears are ringing and my breathing is getting a little bit shallow. I feel like I'm wobbling around but I know that I'm standing still. I'm so dizzy and lightheaded. I lift my arms up and wash underneath my armpits. I can't wash my hair like I wanted to, but at least I rinsed it. I have to get out.

I lean forward and turn off the shower spray. I pull the curtain back quickly and grab my towel off the sink. I wrap my towel around myself and sit down on the edge of the bathtub. With my head still reeling, I take the rag I tied around my wrist off. It's still bleeding pretty badly but it's not as bad as I originally thought. I push against it with the rag some more. _You're okay… you're okay. You're fine… it's okay. _I don't know how many more times I'll be able to try to convince myself that I'm okay. It gets redundant after a while. I stand up with and walk, with wobbly legs over to the medicine cabinet. I grab the brown bottle and untwist the white cap. I hold my wrist over the sink and dump about half the bottle onto my skin. "Oooouch…" I grit my teeth as the peroxide bubbles and burns. I grab a box of Band-Aids out of the cabinet too, dry off my wrist and decorate it with about seven bandages. All of a sudden, when I do that, I start breathing heavy… like I ran a marathon. _That… that should hold. _I grip my towel and secure it around my naked body and put my hand on the doorknob. _Pull it together. Nothing just happened in the bathroom. Nothing just happened in the shower. You're fine. You're gonna put on some clothes and you're gonna go hang out downstairs with your friends. You're fine. Pull it together._

I twist the knob, pull the door open and step out into Shane's room. I look up and there's a body sitting on the bed. "…Get out." I hold my towel tightly against my body and speak out with severity in my voice. I take a step closer to the bathroom door and sigh. Of all people that I could've opened up the door to, it had to be him. It couldn't have been Heather, or Stephanie or Shane. I would've loved for it to have been Leah, actually. But no. Just my luck. "What are you doing in here?"

He stands up off the bed and walks over to me. I back up further and further until finally, my back is against the wall. I keep my towel against my body and look past him. What does he want? Can't he just leave me alone? I need to be alone for .25 seconds. "I came to check on you." He mumbles and grabs the hem of my towel. _Something's gotta give soon or I'm gonna lose it. Stop touching me… _"Come here." He mumbles again and starts pulling on my towel.

"NO, GET OFF ME! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!" I push him away. "Get out. I'll be downstairs in a little while…"

"I'm not leaving, so shut up." He grabs my arm instead of my towel and pulls me away from the wall. I slap his hands away from my body. "Stop pushing me away." He tries to grab me again. I, of course, slap at his hands again. "STOP, OKAY?! STOP." He manhandles me and grabs me by my shoulders. "What is WITH you today? You're so weird…" He drags me over to the bed and makes me sit down. "Calm DOWN, Jo… okay? You're so on edge."

"You would be too, if…" My voice trails off as I realize what I'm about to say to him. "Nevermind." He starts pulling at my towel again. "Stop… what are you trying to do?"

"I'm trying to dry you off so you can put on clothes." He muscles the towel off my body and I'm sitting on the bed… butt naked… in front of Alex.

"I can do it myself… I can do it myself… stop it…" I cross my legs to cover up my womanhood and cover my arms across my chest. "Seriously, I don't need your help. I'm fine… just wait for me downstairs."

He starts softly rubbing the towel across my body. "It was okay for me to see you naked about an hour ago, but now you have to cover up?" He walks around to the front of me and starts gingerly drying off my face. "I think I'm starting to learn how to tell when you're lying…" His eyes don't even leave my face. I'm naked and he's not even looking at me. There's no way he's not looking. I mean something to him, don't I? For me to be sitting here naked in front of him and his eyes don't even budge… I mean something to him. "You're not fine. What happened out there?"

"What, with Lucy?" I take the towel back off him and wrap myself back up so that I can rummage and find some clothes to put on. "Nothing. I just got mad. That's what happens when I get mad. I get mad, I have to hit something…or someone, it takes me a while to calm down, I'm fine afterwards. I'm probably going to have more charges pressed against me, but I'll deal with that when it comes. I just have to suck it up." I grab a pair of clean underwear and toss them on the bed. "I'm not proud of myself, but it happened and I can't take it back."

"No more secrets, Jo." He sits back down on the bed and runs his hands through his hair, as if he's stressed. "Stop pretending. You don't have to pretend for me. I'm not letting you go. No matter how much you push me away… how much bullshit you put me through. I'm not letting you go. I made that mistake already and I'm not making that mistake again. No more secrets. Sit down and talk to me. You won't let me…" He sighs. "Just sit down."

"I won't let you what?" I step into my underwear and pull them up securely on my waist. I turn my back to him and drop the towel. "What won't I let you do?" I pick up a sports bra to put on.

"You're perfect, I think." He clears his throat. "Beautiful face, nice body, amazing personality, ladylike mannerisms, mild-mannered… you're perfect. But I know that it's not all it's cracked up to be. Stop acting so guarded. Just take it off. For a half hour, take it off and let me… see you."

"…I don't have any idea what you're talking about." I yank on another long sleeved shirt. _You know exactly what he's trying to say. Stop acting stupid._

"I just want to see you. The REAL you. Stop perpetrating in front of me. I want you to sit down and let me see who you are, underneath all of that perfection. You won't let me in, and I need you to. That's the only way any of this is going to work. Every time you're with me, you fake like you're okay. I can tell you're faking…"

"I could say the same thing about you though, Alex. Sorry that I can't just tell you everything I'm thinking. Sorry that I don't trust anybody with my secrets. Look, every time I try to open up to anybody, they end up—"

"SO WHAT?!" His voice jumps up a pitch. "You have to get over it. Not everybody is going to hurt you. I'M not going to hurt you. So if you need a shoulder to cry on, if you need someone to listen, if you need someone to tell you that you're acting like a goddamn lunatic like you just did, I want to be that somebody. Kill me for wanting to be more than your friend. Because that's exactly what I feel like I am to you. I don't feel like I'm your boyfriend…"

"…You think I'm a lunatic?"

"You definitely have SOMETHING going on inside that pretty little head of yours."

"…Wow." I look down and shake my head at him. "I think you need to get out now, Alex. I think you need to get out and leave me alone… for good."

"SEE?! There you go again… pushing me away. Stop doing that!" He springs up off the bed. "I love you… so much that it makes me sick. It physically makes me sick to think about how much I love you. Dammit, I love you. And you make that so hard for me to do sometimes. When you act like this. You get so weird. One minute, I can't help but think about how deeply in love I am with you… but then the next minute, you go and act like a total crazy stranger and you push me away constantly and you make it so hard for me to love you."

"Then DON'T. Simple as that. DON'T love me, Alex. I'm sorry that you're an idiot that can't handle the fact that I'm just A LITTLE BIT messed up right now. Sorry that I'm SO hard to love. I'm sorry I'm such a freaking burden to you. But if it's that hard for you to put aside the fact that I'm a… I'm a LUNATIC, then don't love me. Stay out of my life, okay?"

"Really? Is that it? Is that what you really want to say to me right now?"

"It doesn't fucking matter!" I take a couple steps towards him. "IT'S NOT YOU! YOU DON'T HAVE TO RELIVE THE THOUGHT OF BEING… BEING _RAPED _EVERY TIME YOUR BOYFRIEND TOUCHES YOU. YOU DON'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH THE FACT THAT…THE FACT THAT…. You don't understand me… and you never will."

"BUT I WANT TO! I WANT TO UNDERSTAND! Come on… what's bothering you?" Out of the clear blue, he wraps his arms around me and squeezes. "Fight me off, I don't care. I'm not letting you go… I'm not letting you go. I'm not messing this up. I mess up everything and I'm not messing this up. Talk to me, Jo… TALK TO ME."

"I don't have anything to talk to you about! Alex, let me go!" I try so hard to push him away but he has too tight of a grip on me. "Let me go… let me go…"

"No… I'm not letting you go. Talk to me…"

"Everything is just so messed up!" I give up on fighting him and just lie still in his arms. _Your head is about to explode, isn't it? It's going to spontaneously combust. Just like it did with Leah… my mouth starts having diarrhea. A little bit worse this time, though. _"I don't know which way is up anymore… I don't know myself… I don't know who I am. I'm definitely not the girl I was last month. I'm so scared of myself anymore. I don't know when I'm going to snap out, I don't know when I'm going to be happy… I don't know anything anymore and it's just not fair… it's not fair." The tears that are coming out of my eyes this time are so much different than any tears I've cried in the last few months. These are angry tears, sad tears, tears of exhaustion, tears of remorse, tears of sorrow, tears of mourning… tears of every emotion I feel every single day. "It hurts so bad. I feel… I feel everything and nothing at the same time. I'm so… I'm messed up and nobody can help me. I just want to be un-messed up already. How does this even happen? How does this happen to someone? How can someone just be so… unloved by the damn universe? How many times can I break until I'm just… unfixable? I don't get it. I really don't get it… Sixteen years of being with somebody… SIXTEEN years… and that can be taken away in the blink of an eye? A house that you've lived in your whole life… a life you've had for as long as you can remember…. Something that was far from perfect… but it was perfect to me. It was perfect to me.. and it can all go to shit because of a lousy heart attack? A heart attack that wouldn't have killed her if I had been home?! I wasn't done needing her… I wasn't done… and she's gone and I wasn't done and I could've prevented everything if I was home. And the last thing she heard me say was 'You're not my mother'? I just want to know why… I really feel so alone in this whole world. I feel like I don't have anybody…" _Are you done? No? Okay. _Alex doesn't say a word. He rubs my shoulders, holds me and just listens. I'm not done, though. It's like he's not the one holding me. Am I breaking down? I think I am.

"And they tell me… they tell me that I'm supposed trust people. I'm supposed to trust that somebody will take care of me. I'm supposed to trust the fact that nothing bad will happen to me. I'm supposed to trust these people… but people are horrible. People are horrible…" I wrap my arms tightly around his waist and squeeze him. "How can somebody take so much from you? How is that possible? How can one single person take so many things from you? I can't sleep… I don't sleep through the night… I don't like to close my eyes anymore. I have nightmares every single night. How can one person do that to you? I don't even feel… human anymore. Nothing is in my control anymore… nothing. I can't even control when I do or when I don't have sex. How does that happen? You want details? You want the truth? Here it is." _God it feels good to let all of this out. _"He snuck in my room, he kissed me, he touched me… and he just… did it. I was sleeping… I was sleeping… I said no…. I said no, so many times I said no. He didn't care. It hurt… It hurt so bad and I don't know why. He was big and mean and rough and hard and… I couldn't stop him without hurting him… and I didn't know how to deal with that. And I kissed him… I kissed him. I don't know why… I just didn't want to be myself anymore. I wanted to stop hurting. I wanted to do something that I would never do… so I kissed him. And I still can't deal with that. I hurt every single day. I'm just so… I… I never thought I would be the one to… to _cut _myself but now I can't stop that either and I just—"

"You WHAT yourself?" He interrupts me for the first time since I've started spilling my guts to him.

"Nothing." I sniff. "Nothing… I just want to go downstairs…. I'm thirsty… I'm thirsty okay?" I wipe my face off. _Jesus Christ, I swear that slipped. I didn't mean to say that. That slipped. I hope he lets that go._ "Can we go downstairs?" He grabs my arm quietly, with no hesitations or sudden movements. He turns my palm rightside up and I don't even budge. I love him and he loves me. He won't tell. He said I can trust him. He won't tell on me. "…Don't touch them…" I whisper. He ignores me and peels off the Band-Aids I put on them. His eyes grow wider when he seems them. "Oww… ow….ow…."

"How… how long, have you?" His thumb grazes lightly over the cut I just made in the shower. "God…. This one's deep."

"I don't want to talk about them…"

He squeezes my body against his tighter and kisses my cheek. "I'm here, okay? I'm right here, and I'm not going anywhere. We're gonna talk about these… okay? We are. Not right now, but we're going to. You hear me?"

"…Sure."

* * *

"What on God's green Earth makes you think that I want to come home from work and yell at you?! What were you thinking, Jo?! Were you thinking at all?!" She's standing in front of me with her hands on her hips so I have no choice but to look her in her eye while she's scolding me. I sort of already knew that I'd be in trouble when mom came home. First of all, I knew that _I_ would be the one to get into trouble for Shane calling her while she's at work. Shane wouldn't call her at work unless it was a dire emergency and the fact that he felt like me freaking out was a dire emergency puts my ass on the line. Second of all, she actually CAME HOME early, too. And third of all, I got into a fight. If there's anything that mom hates the most, it's when little girls fight. She thinks it's trashy and I guess she's right to a certain extent. "Don't just sit there with that dumb look on your face, answer me. What were you thinking? As if you don't already have enough on your plate, you want to add more assault and battery charges to it? What are you going to do now, Jo?"

I twist my still-damp hair around my finger and pull. I shrug my shoulders and look down at the carpet. "I don't know… I wasn't thinking." I'm ready for the groundation she's about to place on me. I'll probably be phone-less for another week. "I was just sitting upstairs in Shane's room and then he came upstairs and he told me that she was outside. So I went downstairs to see what her problem was. I didn't even plan on fighting with her. I actually told her that I didn't want to fight. And then…right before they were about to leave, the one girl punched me in my face and I just lost it." I hand her my phone because I already know that she's gonna take it. "Here. And if she presses charges, I swear I'll get a job to pay off the fines."

"Honey, I get that you got mad. Believe me, I get that. I've been around you enough to know what happens when somebody takes you to your breaking point. But there's a limit, Jo. There's a limit to how far you can go. You're not invincible and I can't protect you from everything. Shane and your three girlfriends told me that it was pretty bad, and I have to believe that. I know how you get and I'm well aware of what you're capable of doing to somebody. What if you had seriously hurt the girl? Then what do you do? Write her a sorry note and hope she doesn't press charges against you? You have to cool it, baby. Cool it. How long have we been telling you about your temper?"

"I'm sorry… and yeah, it was bad. I think I might've broken her nose or maybe even her jaw, I don't know…" I sit back against the couch and cross my legs. "How long am I grounded for? And here… you can have my phone…" I try handing her my phone again.

"You can keep your phone. Lemme see your face…" She places her fingers underneath my chin and lifts my head up. "What'd I tell you? What have I been telling you ever since you were little? Didn't I tell you that pretty girls don't fight? Pretty girls don't fight, Jo. You're too pretty to be out there rumbling around in the streets, you hear?" I nod softly as she keeps checking the little bit of damage done to my face. "I'll hold off on the fight punishment until we see if the girl's pressing charges or not. But you and Shane both are on punishment. I told you two not to have people in my house while I was at work, didn't I?"

"No, Heather and Steph came afterwards. It was just Alex and Leah at first. Heather and Stephanie only came because they thought I was going to get jumped and they didn't want me to. So…" I sigh. "Yeah, I'm sorry about that too. Can they stay for a little bit longer, though? You know, since me and Shane are about to be grounded for life anyway. One last night of freedom? Can they stay for a little?"

"…Go on upstairs and have fun with everybody." She puts my face down with a kiss to my forehead and lets me go. I stand up from the couch and head to the steps because Shane, Leah, and Alex were all sent upstairs so mom and I could talk privately. I don't know where they went, but Heather and Steph were both gone when me and Alex came downstairs. "Wait a second, Jo…" She calls me back. I stop walking up the steps and barrel my neck around to make eye contact with her. "It'd be nice to meet that Alex character. I hear he's your boyfriend, isn't he?"

"…Yeah. Um… I'll make sure he stops by to say hello to you before he leaves." I grab onto the railing and run up the steps to Shane's room. I turn the doorknob and bust inside without any warning. "Shane, we're both grounded. Mom said they can stay for a while, but only because me and you are grounded until further notice after they leave… for having Leah and Alex in the house when she was at work." I'm not sure what's going on here or what I just walked in to, but Leah is lying between Shane's legs on the bed and poor Alex is third-wheeling all alone on the floor. Loud music is playing from Shane's iHome on his dresser, too. "Awww were you waiting for me?" I plop down on the floor next to Alex. "…What are those two doing?"

"Dry humping, I think." He shrugs and puts his head against my shoulder. I can't help but run my fingers through his hair. "Are you alright?"

"I'm good… really I am." I pull one of his loose wavy curls and unravel it. His hair is actually pretty long… if I take the time to unravel the messy waves in it. Instead of unraveling every wave and curl, I just trace spirals on his head. "Don't cut your hair. I like it long and messy. You can stand to shave, though."

"It's no-shave November." He lifts his hand and starts tracing spirals in my hair too. "I'm gonna have a beard by the end of the month."

"Ew, freaking gross. Please shave." I run my hands along the stubble on his face. It's not that bad yet. "I will shave you while you're sleeping. No-shave November is so gross."

"Do girls participate in no-shave November?" He asks with a smirk on his face.

"We don't grow bea…. EW… you're disgusting!" I give him a love-tap on his cheek and turn my head to the top of the bed. "Leah… Leah, stop sucking Shane's face for a second and tell me something. Do you participate in 'no-shave November'?"

Leah stops kissing Shane for like two seconds and laughs. "I don't know. Shane… do I participate in no-shave November?"

"Definitely not." Shane answers and goes right back to kissing her.

"You two are so…" I roll my eyes at them and turn back to Alex, smile bright and wide across my face. "Well, I speak for myself when I say that I don't take part in no-shave November. And every girl that does that… is disgusting."

"Now you're judging every girl with a little peach fuzz down there?" He interlocks his fingers inside my fingers and holds my hand. "You're a little judgmental."

"I'm not judging them if they have peach fuzz, because I get that. I personally have a thing against body hair. I think girls who are overly hairy in any place of their body except for their arms are disgusting. I can't go longer than two weeks without shaving my pits and my legs. I used to be able to wait three weeks before I'd shave any other places, but that's gone out the window." I stroke his knuckles with my thumb.

"Why's that out of the window all of a sudden?" With the hand of his that I'm not holding, he starts caressing my arm with the tips of his fingers.

"…Because I'm always prepared these days." I scoot over closer to him and put my head against his chest. "Back when I got no action, it was acceptable to go weeks without shaving. I'm prepared all the time now. All…the time." He adjusts his hand inside of mine carefully, wary of the wounds on my left wrist. He's always careful anymore, ever since I told him about them a little while ago. He's cautious of the way he grabs me, cautious of how he hugs me, cautious of everything. "…Why do you insist on being a douchebag to me, though? I've been meaning to ask you that…"

"How am I a douchebag to you now? I think I've been nothing but nice to you lately."

"…How come you never take your pants off?" I lean up and press my lips against his jawline. "When I tell you to, you don't. Hiding something from me? Or are we just a little embarrassed to show what's below the belt?"

His lips draw up into that goofy smile. "Definitely not hiding anything, definitely not embarrassed. I'm just usually focused on something else whenever you ask… and when I'm focused on something else, I don't like to be interrupted for something as stupid as taking my pants off."

"No fair. Since when is that how a relationship works? You see me naked but I don't get to see you? I've seen you shirtless… and that's about it."

"I'm about to say something to you… but before I say it, tell me something." He says through a smile. I raise my eyebrows to let him know I'm listening. "Are you going to blush if I say it to you?"

"…I might."

"…For the record…" He moves his head over a little bit more so that he's directly in my ear. "If you ever kiss me the way you kissed me earlier in public, you're gonna get it. I don't care where we're at…you're getting it."

I look up at the bed, only to see that Shane and Leah are in the midst of a really heavy makeout session. "…I don't think Shane and Leah would mind if I kissed you like that again, do you?" I take my hand out of his hand and lean over to straddle him. I kiss him on his neck before I actually move to his mouth, though. "…By the way…" I start off by just giving him a light peck on his lips. "You could probably tell Jackson and Shane that you'll be nailing Princess by the end of the week."


	37. Don't Do This

"Excited to come back to school tomorrow?" Shane tosses me two pillowcases so that I can change the ones he already has on his pillows. I start pulling the cases off the pillows and tossing them into the dirty sheet pile. "I didn't tell anyone that you're coming back. The only ones that know are Leah, Steph, Heather and Alex. Nobody else knows. I kind of just wanted to surprise the rest of them."

"I'm just excited to hopefully get back to normal, you know?" I slide the pillows into the new pillowcases and put them on his bed neatly. "Like hopefully I can just… be chill when I get back to Garfield. No more fighting or anything. Just focusing on school, like I should be."

"Yeah, but you'll still have to see Lucy and her posse every day so I'm not sure how much of the 'no fighting' thing you'll be able to deal with. I just wish people would stop messing with you. I keep trying to tell people that you're not someone to mess around with. I've been learning that the hard way ever since we were three." He adjusts his quilt on his bed and sits down. "I'm starting to wonder how many asses you have to kick for people to understand that your hands are lethal."

"I don't think it's that serious, Shaney." I sit down across from him on the bed and move my hair to the back of my head. "So um… let's talk about how rude you and Leah are." I giggle and playfully kick him in his knee. "I felt like me and Alex bought a front row ticket to an X-rated movie yesterday. You just didn't give a crap that we were in the room. I mean, if there was one thing I could've gone my entire life without hearing, it would've been the sounds of you and Leah going at it." Because we're both grounded and we have no choice but to spend time with each other, I cross my legs Indian-style and innocently crack my knuckles.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, WHOA! Whoa!" He puts his hands up at me. "First of all, we turned on the music AND the TV so you guys wouldn't hear it… and it's not like we full out did it. It was just head for head, that's all. And—"

I jokingly roll my eyes and cackle aloud, interrupting him. "OH I KNOW IT WAS HEAD FOR HEAD. The nasty noises gave that one way. It's still rude that we had to sit there and listen while you two went down on each other. You could at least have manners!"

"Listen here, bitch… You two were in MY room. If you don't want to know what my girlfriend and I do behind closed doors, get your own room loser."

I roll my eyes again and toss a pillow at him. "WhatEVER. You're an asshole, Shane. You grew up to be a little asshole." I tuck a loose strand of my hair behind my ear and genuinely smile at him. "Until Tuesday, this room is still mine… so you should respect the fact that we share a room and NOT have sex in the bed that I have to sleep in. Why do you think I slept on the floor last night, jerk? You're gross, and you JUST NOW changed the sheets…"

"It. Wasn't. Sex." He rolls his eyes up to the ceiling and gnashes his teeth. "It was just a little bit of oral." His eyes return back to my face, and his expression jumps to something a little more sinister and cunning. "Oh, hold on 'Little Miss Perfect.' Need I remind you what you and Alex were doing yesterday in OUR room?!"

"THAT'S SO DIFFERENT!" I chuck another pillow at him and hide my blushingly bright red face. "…We were on the floor! I had enough respect not to do it in your bed! And it didn't even happen… you made sure it didn't happen, you little queer."

"How is it different? How is that any different?" He throws the pillow back at me and laughs hysterically. "By the way, I am really sorry for interrupting that. I'd be pissed if someone interrupted me while I was in the middle of getting some…. Were you pissed?"

"Like you wouldn't BELIEVE." I take my hands away from my face and nod. "I could've killed you. You ruined the WHOLE mood. It was gonna be my FIRST, and you ruined it!"

"…I'm real sorry." He actually shakes his head like he sympathizes with me. "…Awwww…"

"Awww, what?" I raise an eyebrow at him.

"Awww, my lil Jojo is trying to have a sex life." He reaches out and pets my head like I'm a dog. "I'm not quite sure how good of a sex life it'll be, but awww… you're trying."

"…Hey Shane… remember that time… when we were little… and we were swimming in your grandparents' pool… and you kept deflating my floatie… and I grabbed you by your nuts… and twisted them…until you cried? You remember that?" I watch as his face quickly turns from giddiness to horror. He nods his head. "I'm going to rip them off this time, if you keep messing with me." I roll my eyes out of seriousness this time and run my fingers through my hair. "Stop teasing me all the time. You remember that thing that happened last month and you made me swear we wouldn't talk about it? I haven't talked about it. So stop teasing me so much about how I have no sex life."

"What are you talking about, Jo? I never made you swear not to tell anybody anything. You're the queen of doing that to me. You always lay some heavy stuff on me then make me swear not to say anything about it. You did it back in seventh grade when you broke Nick's finger. You made us both swear not to tell my mom how it really broke and we didn't. Then just the other night, you show up at my doorstep and try to make me promise not to tell that someone beat the hell out of you? You do that, not me. I never made you swear not to tell anybody anything."

"Really, Shane? Really?" _Well since he's bringing up old skeletons in the closet… _"How about that time… LAST YEAR, actually… when you 'accidentally' kissed me? Or what about last month when you did it on purpose? And both times you begged me not to tell? That's bullshit, Shane. I really don't feel like arguing with you about it. I just feel like you always attack me for no reason. You make me feel like I'm the shittiest person ever. You always pick on me and I don't like it. Why do you always pick on me?"

"I _don't _pick on you, Jo. You're just overly sensitive." He puts his foot against my back and nudges me. "Stop taking everything I say to heart… I'm usually just joking with you. Plus, it…helps, sometimes. To mess with you. It helps."

"Helps with what?" I take the ponytail holder off my wrist and tie my hair back with it.

"Nothing. Forget I said anything." He clears his throat. "So let's go see if dinner's done. I'm starving…."

"No, Shane." I turn my full attention to him and stare him down. That's one thing about me that everyone else should also know. Never get into a staring contest with me, because you won't win. I don't know why, but I'm freakishly good at staring. And Shane knows that, so he doesn't even try me. He looks away, down at his pillow. "Now what were you talking about? When you said it helps? It helps with what?"

"Seriously, Jo… nothing. It's best if you forget I even mentioned it… really, it is. Forget it."

"I'm not gonna forget it… and you know I'm not."

"Well you should. I can see it now… we'll have a massive argument about it and you won't even give me the chance to explain and it'll just be a big ass mess. Really, J. Forget about it… please forget about it."

"You can tell me, Shane. I promise I'll let you explain… and I'll try not to argue with you about it, but no promises with that. Just tell me. I'm not gonna let it go and you're not gonna feel better until you tell me about it. So just tell me…"

"It's just that…" He lets out a really hard, long sigh. I'm really trying to turn off my judgmental emotions because I can tell that whatever he's about to say is really hard for him. I'm trying to be understanding. I'm understanding. "It's always there… and it's always been there. Until I started dating Leah, I mean. That's why I'm so determined to keep Leah. I know she's good for me. I know she's the one I'm supposed to be with, because she's the only one that's ever been able to take it away. It's always been there, though. At first, Leah didn't take it away though. It took her a while to take it away and right now, it's completely gone. And I want it to stay gone because I don't like having it there. So insulting you helps… or at least it used to. I don't really feel the need to do it anymore, now that it's gone. But for a while there, it really helped."

"…Okay, I'm trying to listen to you. I'm really trying to hear what you're saying… but I'm lost. What are you talking about?"

"You, Jo. I'm talking about you." He seems really frustrated and if he's trying to tell me what I think he's trying to tell me then I think I'm going to jump right on the train to frustration-town. "No matter what I did, no matter how many times I told myself that I'd grow out of it, no matter how much I tried to convince myself that I was stupid for it… it was always there. I kept trying to tell myself that it was a stupid little crush that I'd grow out of. But then we got older, it got stronger and it was always… ALWAYS freaking there. I wanted it to go away so badly but it never did… until Leah. But I guess I'm just scared that it's still there somehow. I'm scared that it's not really gone."

"…No, Shane… don't tell me this." I close my eyes and shake my head. "No…NO. Okay? No."

"You said you'd let me explain…" He sounds really embarrassed, so I'm empathizing with that fact. _Every fucking time something starts going right… every time. EVERY TIME. _

"Fine, I'm listening." I can't even look at him. I can't even…. I just can't.

"It's not like I wanted it… I swear I never wanted it. I used to stay up at night, beating myself up about it… that's how bad I wanted it to go away. I hate it, Jo. I hate it so badly. I tried so hard to make it go away but it just stayed. I wanted to talk to you so about it so bad but I knew you'd freak out and never want to talk to me again. But I'm telling you now, so…" He sighs. "It happened in sixth grade…" I guess the feeling's mutual because he can't look at me either. "Remember when your gram went to Vegas with her group of friends and you had to stay the weekend. And you fell asleep on me while we were watching that movie on the couch… it started then, but I just brushed it off. And it kept happening. I know everything about you. I know… I know how you got that scar behind your ear. I know how to tell when you're getting ready to cry. I know what it means when your nostrils flare up while you're talking to somebody. I know when you're sleepy, or hungry or upset. I can calm you down when you're angry, I can tell when you're hurt. Your bottom lip… it quivers when you're frustrated and upset. You have… ten freckles on your back, not including the one that's on the nape of your neck. You have one on your thumb that's shaped like a heart. Your hair takes up more than half of your back, but when you have it up in a ponytail, it only touches your shoulder blades." After he says that, I check the freckle on my thumb… yep, it's heart-shaped. "I don't like knowing all these things about you. I don't like that I pay attention to every freaking detail about you… but I do know that insulting you kind of helps..."

"…No, Shane. No… No. I just… I really need a friend right now… I need you as my friend, not as my secret… admirer…" I hold my head in my hands and clench my lips together tightly to prevent any tears from falling. "Please don't do this to me, Shane. Don't do this…"

"I'm sorry. I really, really, really, REALLY am. You don't know how bad I wish that it wasn't like that. Because I DON'T want to do anything to you. I know that I don't do anything but confuse you and I'm sorry for that. And I'm all for you and Alex… I really am. I'm all for it. And I'll never try to…fight Alex over you or anything like that. I'll never try to do that. I just care that you're happy and for the first time since the sixth grade, I'm happy too. I'm happy with Leah… and Leah's been able to take it away. Leah's the only one that took it away. And I'm just so scared that it's still there, Jo."

"So you lied to me." I'm still not looking at him. "When you said… when you told me that the kiss didn't mean anything. When you told me that you didn't think of me that way… you lied. You lied to me, didn't you? You DO think of me like that, don't you? I freaking… I knew it." He scoots up so that he's next to me on the bed and puts his arm around my shoulder. "Don't touch me…" I mumble. He takes his arm away.

"I…I'm sorry, Jo. I'm sorry that I fell in love with you." My eyes widen by about ten more sizes when he says that. "I'm sorry that I fell in love with my best friend. I knew it shouldn't have happened and I tried to stop it from happening but I couldn't fight it. You just…" He sighs, harder this time. "You grew on me, I guess. Everybody always says that they fall in love with their best friend, and I never wanted to do that… but I did. I just think about how… how you wouldn't have to change for me, because I already love everything about you. I love your… your crazy hair, your green eyes, your hairy arms, your perfection… hell, I even love your bad temper. You wouldn't have to change anything for me, because I already love everything about you. I love you, J… I always have."

_He said he loves you… And dammit, he just said he loves everything about you. This cannot be happening to me… this cannot be happening… _"No…" Those three words were all it took for tears to come out of my eyes. "Stop it… stop it…. You can't love me… you can't… you're my brother… you're my brother… stop it…" _Why are you crying so hard? Is it that serious? _"No, Shane… don't ruin this… don't mess this up…"

"…I knew I shouldn't have said anything…"

"We work so well as friends…. Why are you doing this? Why? Why right now? I… I don't have anywhere else to go yet… why right now? I like it here…" My chest hiccups violently and the tears just keep coming down. "Don't do this… I actually want to stay here. I like it here… not again…."

"….Jo, I would never…." He reaches over and holds my hand. I try to pull away but he doesn't let me. "I really want you to be happy. And I know you… I know you better than anybody knows you. I can see that you're happy here. I can see that you're really happy and you're starting to go back to yourself. I would never…ever… EVER jeopardize that. If you being happy means that I have to suck it up and care for you like a sister, then I'll do whatever I need to do to do that. I feel like I'll be okay as long as I have Leah… She's the ONLY one that takes that away. I just want you to be happy. I want to be whatever you need me to be. A brother, a best friend… a boyfriend… a husband… Nobody ever gets their happy ending anyway, right?"

"…Happy ending?"

"…I just always used to think that maybe I'd marry you. It made sense… I'd marry my best friend and we can tell our kids how we started out as best friends then eventually we got married…"

"What are you even TALKING about?!" I jump up off the bed. "Stop it! Please stop it!" _This is totally not happening to me. TOTALLY not happening. _"I don't love you like that, Shane… I never did and I don't…. I never will. Why can't you just be my friend? Why can't you just be my brother? Why do you have to love me? Why do you have to do this? I swear to God I hate you so much, Shane. I hate you… I hate you for this…"

"Please don't hate me… please don't hate me, J."

"Why are you doing this to me? I can't possibly stay here… I can't… sl…sleep in the same BED as you, knowing all of this…"

"J, I've been dealing with this ever since the sixth grade. I'm pretty much a professional at controlling my feelings for you. I've had enough time to practice. This doesn't have to change anything… it doesn't have to change anything. It's still me… it's still me. Nothing's different. And I know you don't feel that way about me. I came to terms with that, the first time I kissed you and you practically threw up in my mouth. And the second time I kissed you and you had a meltdown afterwards, well that sealed the deal that you didn't like me back. I guess I just need to throw away that last little bit of hope that we could possibly be together…"

"If…" _Don't do this, Jo. Don't do this. Please don't do this. I know you feel like it'd solve something but it wouldn't solve anything. It'd make everything worse. Don't do it… okay? Giving Shane a consolidation kiss won't solve anything… don't do it. Kissing him will only make everything worse. _"How do we fix this? How do I make you….stop?"

"….So you really don't feel that way for me?" He looks heavily disappointed.

"…I'm sorry Shane, but no… I don't…" I swallow a lump in my throat and sniff. "…I mean, of course it crossed my mind, but it never went further than that. I'm sorry that it happened for you… it just never happened for me. I never… fell for you. You're… You're GREAT, Shane. Amazing, actually. I think Leah is really lucky… but not great for me. I love you so much as my best friend, but nothing more than that. I'm SO sorry…"

"Don't apologize to me, J… it's my fault."

"No, Shane… it's not. You… you can't help who you fall for… I just wish it wasn't me."

"I wish it wasn't you, either. But I have to keep Leah. Leah's special… I know she is. She's the only girl that hasn't ever made me think about you. She's the only girl that's never made me wish she were you. She's special… she has to be. I have to keep her. I can't lose her."

"I'll make sure you keep her."

* * *

"It's been falling out and shedding nonstop ever since she pulled it." I hold my hair tightly in one hand and ferociously drag a brush through the ends of it with a brush. I have enough of my loose hair on my shirt to make a wig for a couple cancer patients. It just keeps coming out and coming out in big clumps. "I'm afraid to wash it or do anything to it because I'm going to be bald if I keep messing with it. But if I don't brush it, it just comes out anyway." My brush snags on a tangle in my hair and I rip it through. Mom stands behind me and tries to take the brush out of my hand. "No, I can do it." I easily throw my elbow back at her to get her away. "I can do it…"

"Jo, let me see the brush… lemme see it." She wraps her fingers around the handle of the brush and softly pries it out of my hands. "You're angry about something and if you don't stop taking it out on your pretty little head, you're gonna be bald. Stop it." I let her take the brush without further ado. She starts softly combing it through my hair. "When's the last time you've had a haircut, baby?"

"It's been a while." I feel like I'm going to throw up. I've been nauseous ever since this afternoon. How could Shane just lay that on me like that? I love Alex. No, I'm IN LOVE with Alex. He's all I ever think about. But Shane's in love with me… how does that even work? And if he's been dealing with it ever since sixth grade and it hasn't gone away yet, doesn't that mean that it's not GOING to go away? Everything is just making perfect sense now. Has that ever happened to you? When you get a brand new piece of information and you start thinking back, putting pieces together and you realize DAMN that makes sense…everything is making sense now. Memories are just flooding me.

"_Wow, Shane… this is deep. You know, for it to just be an English assignment. You should write poems…" I nudge him in his shoulder, just teasing him. The assignment was to pick a song that currently relates to a situation you're going through in your life. We had to print out the lyrics and dissect them, writing a brief 1-2 paragraph explanation of how each line of the lyrics affect us and why we relate. He chose some song called "Crush." Me? I chose "Don't Wake Me Up" by Chris Brown. Why? Because I needed a nap when we had to pick our songs in class. "But anyway, all your grammar looks fine, the punctuation is good… it's a good essay." I hand it back to him. I actually hate when we makes me proofread his things but if I don't, he won't be able to play in his very first varsity football game. "Who's the lucky lady that your song relates to? Is it… the Asian girl from lunch?"_

"_Wow Jo, did you even read the lyrics of the song? That'd mean I would have actually had to talk to Cristina, which I never have. So no, she's not the lucky lady. It's really none of your business." He takes his paper off me so he can put it in his bookbag to turn in tomorrow._

_I snatch it back off him so I can reread it. "Oh come on, Shane… tell me." I straighten the paper and clear my throat real obnoxiously to read it. "Why do I keep running from the truth? All I ever think about is you. You've got me hypnotized, so mesmerized and I just gotta know…" Whoever's the subject of his lyrics dissection is a really lucky girl. This is so sweet. Teardrop… I keep reading though, purely to mock Shane. "Do you ever think when we're all alone all that we could be? Where this thing could go? Am I crazy or falling in love? Or is this really just another crush? Do you catch your breath when I look at you? Are you holding back like the way you do? I'm trying, trying to walk away but I know this crush ain't going away…" It's definitely about Cristina! "Shane, seriously, who's this about? It's totally about Cristina, isn't it?"_

"_No, Jo. It's not. And I couldn't tell you who it's about, even if I wanted to…"_

_It was about me… the whole time, it was about me. _"Can I take you to get your hair cut tomorrow, Josie? I just want to get some of these bad ends off…" Breaking my thoughts, mom stops running the brush through my hair for a little while just to talk to me. "I know somebody that could trim it up for you."

"Sure, go ahead… I don't care." _Shane can't love me. He just can't. It's not supposed to happen this way. We're supposed to be friends—best friends. He's not supposed to fall in love with me. It's not even a competition between him and Alex. I really love Alex… a lot. But I really don't want to choose between the two of them. I hope it never comes down to that. Crap, what do I do? Do I just pretend that I never heard Shane say any of that? I hate this. But it makes too much sense for it not to be true. _Again, my thoughts trail off… a little more recent in time, though. I guess I don't just block out bad memories…

"_Jo, why does your face look like that? Did somebody hit you?" I see the tears welling up in his eyes as he stands across the kitchen, looking at me. "Did somebody hurt you? Was it a man?"_

_Why else would he want to cry at the thought of somebody hitting me? God, I'm blind. I totally didn't see the evidence, sitting right in front of me. _"Josie, what's the matter? Something bothering you?" _Maybe she could help…_

I take a deep breath and tilt my head backwards as she started brushing my hair again. "I'm having boy troubles…" I sugarcoat it.

"Oh… well, spill. I've had my fair share of those…"

"Okay, what do I do if… if … okay." I clasp my hands together, because I think better when I do. "So let's say that you have a boyfriend. And you really, really, really, REALLY like your boyfriend because he's nice to you. He's really nice to you. And you like him a lot… you might actually love him. But then another guy….who's just as nice, equally as amazing…comes along. And he starts telling you that he would be perfect for you, and you know he would be… because he's a really nice guy. But you're just not interested in him…. because if you were with him, it would ruin A LOT of things…"

"What would it ruin, honey?"

"Friendships… relationships… my life, basically."

"Well which one treats you better?"

"…Alex, obviously. I've never even gave the other boy a chance… and I never will. Because he's just… he's… he's a friend, and nothing more than that. I'll never give him a chance, even though I know we could be perfect for each other. I think we're perfect as friends and that's the way I want to keep it. Because I just really like Alex… and I don't want to ruin anything."

"So two guys are fighting over you?"

"…Not exactly. Because the other guy… I've known the other guy for a while… like since sixth grade." I embellish just a little bit. "I've known him for a while and he's one of my best friends, so he gets that I don't feel the same way. But now I feel bad that he feels this way about me and I don't feel the same. I feel horrible. So what should I do? I already let him down easy… I think."

"Well, if the other guy understands that you like Alex, he'll understand why you can't just up and be with him. But Jo… how do you know that Alex is really what you want if you never gave the other one a chance?"

"Because if I even thought about the other one, I'd ruin EVERYTHING for everybody…"

"You have no way of knowing that, though baby…"

"Yes I do."

"How do you know, then?"

"Because. This guy… he basically just told me that he's loved me for forever and I can't… I can't deal with that. He'd ruin me. He'd ruin me, you, himself… He's not good for me." _Okay, seriously you shouldn't have opened your mouth. This is doing nothing but frustrating you._

"But I thought you said he was nice…"

"He is! But not nice for me…" _Oh my god, I'm getting so irritated._

"What's so bad about this other guy, Josie? I'm not understanding…"

"IT'S SHANE!"


	38. Helping

I grasp the polished wood of the staircase railing and steadily begin climbing the stairs, all the while thinking about what I should say should say to him. I should probably begin by apologizing, that's pretty concrete. He's going to be so mad at me. _Rightfully so. You couldn't handle one of his secrets, and you just blabbed about it. After all of the secrets of yours he's kept, you couldn't keep one of his. You're batting a thousand here, aren't you? _When I get to the top of the steps, I freeze for a second to collect myself. With the backs of my hands, I wipe away anything that could indicate that I'd been crying. I push my hair out of my face, inhale, hold my breath and continue down the hallway to his room. I knock twice before I just barge in this time. "Shane…"

He's lying on his bed, staring up at the ceiling, tossing a hacky-sack ball up and down. _Dear god what did I do? He's going to hate me… I'd hate me. _He catches the ball in his left hand and turns his head over towards the doorway that I'm standing in. "Yeah?" _Do I tell him what I did, before or after I tell him that he has to go downstairs? If I tell him before I tell him that he needs to go downstairs, he might not go downstairs at all. But if I tell him afterwards, then he's just going to be blindsided by the whole thing and I'll feel even worse than I already do. I think it's pretty clear that there's no good outcome for this. _"J, what's wrong?" He puts the hacky-sack down on the bed next to him and sits up. Well shit. My decision has just been made for me, hasn't it? I guess I have to tell him. Shane reads me like an open book; all the time. I used to think it was because we were such good friends, but in light of new evidence, it might just be because he's in love with me.

"Shane, I am… SO… so…so… so sorry." I put my hands behind my back and innocuously look down at the carpet. Being that I'm not looking directly up, I'm just relying on what I hear. I hear his bed creak slightly and his covers scuffle as he gets off the bed. Heavy footsteps walk over towards me until they finally stop. Like I knew he would, he stretches out his arms and wraps them snug around my body. For some reason, this hug feels different. _You're just freaking out because he openly admitted to having a crush on you. Maybe he really is just trying to hug you like a friend hugs another friend when they're clearly and visibly upset. _One of his hands traces up my back and stops at the back of my head. Easily, he guides my head down to his chest. _No, he cannot do that! He can't do this! This isn't normal… is it? _I recollect my thoughts of why I'm even up here in the first place, pull myself together and firmly push him away. "Your mom wants to talk to us." I carp.

"…For what? That doesn't explain why you're so upset." He generously accepts my harsh push-away and lets go of me. He bends his knees slightly so he can look eye-to-eye with me while my head is bowed. I still can't even bear to look at him. He reads me so well… "…You _told_, didn't you?" I don't say anything but I don't move either, and that's enough for him to know what my answer to that question is. "Why'd you tell?! Jo, I thought you said… you said…. YOU TOLD!"

"I'm sorry! I didn't know what else to do…"

"It was supposed to be a secret, Jo! You said you wouldn't tell anybody…let alone my MOM."

"I'm SORRY, Shane. I really didn't mean to… it just… I just… it got so bad…"

"Shut up, Jo." He angrily pushes me aside and storms out of his bedroom. The side of my hip bashes into his dresser pretty hard when he pushes me, but it's bearable. I clamp my hand over the spot that my hip hurts and follow after him. He's moving pretty fast, which generally means he's pissed off. I follow him down the steps and into the living room. He's never going to forgive me for this. I don't think I'd forgive myself if I did this. Before I step into the living room, I pull up the edge of my t-shirt and look down at my hip. It's just a little bit red. _Here goes nothing… _I saunter over to the couch and take a seat on the far side, away from Shane. I really wish I hadn't told.

Mom sits down on the ottoman in front of us and folds her hands like she means business. Before she starts talking, I wipe away a tear that just fell and make sure my eyes deviate away from the nasty looks that Shane's giving me. "Shane? You have something you want to tell me?" She seems eerily calm, cool and collected. I'm not sure where this conversation is going to end up…nor do I want to know. She starts shaking her foot in a tranquil manner and looks at him. Shane just sucks his teeth and shakes his head. "Really? Because right now is the time to speak up. I want to talk this out before it gets any nastier than it has to be. So if you have something you've been bottling up inside of yourself, you should tell me about it so we can solve it."

Shane harshly shrugs his shoulders and turns away from me. "It sounds like she already told you everything you need to know, now didn't she?"

"Wait a second before you start to get angry, Shane. You have no right to get angry with her. She didn't do anything. Neither one of you did anything wrong. There should be no harbored hatred or ill feelings towards each other. We have to be able to talk about this. So both of you need to take a second to calm down." She reaches behind herself onto the coffee table and hands me a box of tissues. "I want the two of you to talk. No interruptions. Shane, if you have something you'd like to say to her… you can say it."

"I don't have anything to say to her. She's a frickin' liar and I can't trust her. I ask her… not to tell anybody this ONE thing and she can't even do that."

"SHANE, I SAID I WAS SORRY!" I turn to him and slam down the tissue box. I put my hands over my face and just weep. "I don't know what you wanted from me… you can't just tell me something like that and not expect me to feel some type of way about it… it's not my fault."

"You told my MOM, Jo! My MOM! Of all people for you tell… you tell my MOM?!"

I put the palms of my hands against my temples and squeeze my head. "Stop yelling at me…"

"Shane." Mom outstretches her arm and puts it on my shoulder. "You have to try to understand how she's feeling. She's going through a lot right now and if she needs somebody to talk to—"

"STOP DEFENDING HER!" Shane's yelling voice is easily the most frightening thing I've ever heard in my life. When he's mad, he's furious. "HOW LONG IS IT GOING TO BE OKAY FOR HER TO ACT OUT? IT'S BEEN A MONTH! THERE SHOULD BE A LIMIT AS TO HOW LONG SOMEONE CAN KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH STUFF AND GETTING IT ALL WRITTEN OFF AS GRIEF OR WHATEVER."

"You're being unfair, Shane. And I don't like it."

"Because I'm the unfair one in this situation." His voice returns back to normal and he twists his body so that he's facing me and talking directly to me. "That wasn't easy for me to do, Jo. That wasn't easy at all. I just poured my entire heart out to you, and no less than a half hour after I do it, you go back and tell my mom? I can't believe you. I thought so much of you… I mean, I still do think a lot of you, obviously. But I would've never told you how I felt if I knew you were going to tell somebody about it. It's not some creepy, moronic crush… it's not that at all. And now that you've got that in your head, that's all you're ever going to think about. I'm not going to be able to hug you anymore or anything because you're always going to think it means something different. I knew that when I told you. But I DIDN'T know that you were gonna tell…"

"And I'm SORRY, my god!" I throw my hands up in the air because I'm not sure what else I have to say. "I felt like she could help! Shane, I don't want to lose you! I don't want to lose you, I don't want to lose this… that's why I told. I felt like she could help… she'd know what to do… I'm sorry, alright? I'm not gonna keep apologizing to you. Either you accept it or you don't, I don't care. But don't act like you wouldn't do the same if you were confused…"

"What are you confused about?! What you're failing to understand is that I've been loving you for as long as I can even remember, Jo. For as long as I can remember, I've been… so… obsessed with you. It's been going on for SO long and I've been dealing with it. I've been dealing, Jo. I've been dealing. It's never stopped me from being your friend before, why should it stop us from being friends now that you know? The only difference is that you're aware now. I'm just going to say it for what it is. I love you. I love you now, I always have loved you, I probably always will. You know about it now, so what? It doesn't change anything. What does it change? Nothing. It changes the fact that I lied to you a couple times about my feelings, it changes the fact that yes… the kisses I gave you meant a little more to me than they did to you. But so what?! NOTHING changes."

"…But it _does _change, Shane." I whisper to him. "My head is just so messed up already and you just messed it up more. How do you possibly expect me to just deal with the fact that you just told me that you… you love me. You _love _me, Shane. You do. And of course… it's always going to be in the back of my mind when you hug me… when I sleep in your bed… when I feel like using your shoulder to cry on. Of course that's gonna bug me. How do you think I feel, knowing that someone that I care about… I care about SO much feels this way about me? I don't want to hurt you, Shane… but that's what I feel like I'm doing. You like me… and I'm dating one of your closest friends. That makes me feel so… crappy. I don't want to hurt you…"

"You're NOT, though. What part of that don't you understand? Jo, I don't care. I don't care that you don't like me back. It used to bum me out. It used to be the reason I would cry every time you went home, the reason I would sit on your Myspace—yes MYSPACE page staring at your pictures…. But I don't care anymore. It's something I've learned to deal with. I'm a big boy. I can deal with a girl not feeling the same way about me. You're not hurting me by being with Alex. You're not causing me any emotional distress. It doesn't hurt me anymore. I'm able to treat you normally and you should be able to treat me normally too."

"But… obviously it does kind of hurt you… if picking on me still helps you. And you kissed me… just last month, you kissed me…" _I swear I wish I could clone myself. I wish I could give one of me to Shane and give the real me to Alex. There's absolutely no competition between Shane and Alex, really. I'd choose Alex hands down. But I don't want to feel like I'm hurting Shane. I care about Shane a lot and the last thing I want to do is leave him heartbroken over something I can't control. I don't feel the same about him and I really doubt that I ever will. _"Can you really just act like you don't feel a certain way?"

"Yes Jo… I can. It's something I'll get over. And I told you… I told you, as long as I have Leah. As long as I have Leah, I'm fine. I just need more time. I need more time with her to know that she really does take every last drop of you…away from me."

In front of us, mom unfolds her hands and clears her throat. "So we have to come up with a solution to this, though. We still don't have a solution." _Crap… something told me this was still going to be an issue. I knew it. I knew it wouldn't just go away this smoothly. Things NEVER go smoothly for me. I just want to stay… but I know what's coming next. If there's one thing I learned about foster care, it's that foster brothers and foster sisters can NOT be threatened by feelings for each other. I just don't know what I'm going to do now. _"Obviously Shane can't leave… And I can't have you two sleeping in the same place. So Jo, you're gonna have to—" _I don't want to hear this. I don't want to leave._

"…I knew I was going to get kicked out over this. Thanks a lot, Shane." I spring up quickly off the couch and bolt for the steps. I just knew I was going to get kicked out for this. I learned this lesson from the Myers. Even if I had agreed to sleep with Jason, I would've been kicked out of the Myers house if Paula found out about us. Foster brothers and sisters CANNOT have relationships with each other. That's like… the quickest way to get booted out of a house. Shane admitting that he loves me… me, having no choice but to sleep in his bed… I'm getting kicked out. I don't have any other choices. I'm leaving… before I can get kicked out.

"JO! COME BACK!" Mom…err, Miss Kelly yells after me. Why should I come back? I'm getting kicked out. I don't want to stay here for that. Sorry, but no thanks. Still, something inside me wills myself back down the steps that I've already climbed. Blindly, my legs march themselves back to the living room. I'm standing in front of the both of them, numb. My legs are numb… my emotions are numb. My brain is numb. I'm numb… and the only thing I can think about is making myself bleed. "…Nobody said anything about kicking you out." She looks at me like I'm crazy, but nope I'm not crazy…just numb. She stands up from the place she was sitting and walks over to me. "I'm not kicking you out… why would I do that?"

Shane's face is blank, expressionless. I can usually tell what he's thinking just by a glance, but I'm not sure at this point. Maybe he's not thinking about anything. "…Mom?" No, he's definitely thinking about something. _He won't. He doesn't know, and he won't. He won't._

I look away from Shane before I read too much into his facials and back at mom. "I… I heard that foster brothers and foster sisters can't have relationships with each other. Even having conversations about… liking one another is cause for removal. I just thought… that maybe…"

"This isn't foster care, honey. And even if it was… I'm not letting you go that easily. I'm not your foster mother, Jo and I'm not gonna let anyone take you away from me. We're gonna work through this, because I'm keeping you."

Suddenly, Shane stands up from his spot on the couch too. "Mom…" He says again.

"What do you need, Shaney?"

He looks at me through the corner of his eye and huffs. He stands right beside us. _Maybe he does know. Maybe he knows… but I swear to god he won't. He won't. _"There's something else that we have to talk about…" I watch as his fingers quiver and quake. He lifts one single hand up and holds onto mine… my left hand. He begins to lift both our hands up. _He WON'T… HE WON'T. HOW DOES HE KNOW? _"I've been um… it's been pretty hot lately, actually. For Seattle… but Jo doesn't have any short-sleeved t-shirts to wear. So maybe we should go get her some?" _He better not. _I stare at him, dead in his eyes. He knows what I'm saying. _Shane, don't you DARE._

"We could go shopping, if that's what Jo wants." Mom naively nods her head as if everything's all well and good.

Shane's hand suddenly constricts around my hand so that I can't move it. "Shane, don't." I clench my teeth and desperately…desperately plead with him. "DON'T." I try to snatch my hand away from him but he won't let me. "Shane… Shane, don't you dare. Don't…" He grabs onto my shirt sleeve. "GET OFF ME, SHANE! I'M NOT EVEN KIDDING!"

"Mom, she…" I try yanking myself free from him once again but to no avail. His fingertips grip the edge of my sleeve so tight that I can't get out of it, at all. With one quick, swift movement and a tough struggle from me, he pulls up my sleeve. "She cuts…"

* * *

"How was your first day back to school?" The pen never stops moving as she talks. As much as I want to chew on my fingernails, I won't. Instead, I jam a piece of puzzle that doesn't fit onto another piece. "Was everybody excited to see you? Were you glad to be back?" At this point, I know she's bullshitting me. I know she knows that I didn't go to school today. I was supposed to, but I didn't. And I know she knows this. She spends ten minutes before every session, talking to mom. Mom lets her know what she wants her to talk to me about. I'm sure she told her that I didn't go to school today. She made me stay home. Just like she made me wear a short-sleeved shirt to my session today. I'm not taking off my jacket, though.

"Didn't go to school." I yank the two pieces I forced together apart and toss them aside.

"You didn't? Why not?" She's still writing in her little notebook. If I squint, I could see what she's writing about me. I'm not really all that interested though. It's not worth squinting and getting a headache over. "I thought you were supposed to go back to school today. Is there a reason your mom kept you home?"

"She doesn't think I slept well enough last night." I give her the most mediocre reason I could possibly give. It's not exactly a lie though. That's what she told me when I woke up this morning at the crack of dawn to get ready for school. I know it was a little bit of a lie when she told me to go back to sleep, but still. It's better than getting into the real reason she kept me home. "So I guess it's because I didn't get enough sleep last night."

"She mentioned that to me, yes." From her little lunchbox beside her desk, she pulls out a pack of saltine crackers. She holds them up to me, offering me some. I nod my head. She pours a pile of them on a paper plate in the middle of the table and scoots it over towards me. "How have you been sleeping, Josephine?"

"You can call me Jo today." I pick up one of the saltine crackers she gave me, take a nibble off a corner and put it back on the paper plate. I'm not hungry. I'm not sure why I even accepted them. "And I guess I've… I haven't been sleeping much."

"Any idea why you haven't been sleeping? Has it just been hard for you to fall asleep or is there some other reason?"

"…At first, I thought it was because I was afraid that he'd be there. Because that's how it all started… I was trying to sleep, and he came along. But now I just don't think I can fall asleep. I can't get comfortable enough to fall asleep at night."

"Are you tired at all through the day?"

"Not really. I haven't slept since…. Since the night before the social worker took me into foster care. And I haven't really been sleepy. I'm just not tired…but I don't sleep."

"That's something I can help with." She finally stops writing. "So another thing we have to talk about is the obvious self-injury. Your mom seemed really upset when she was telling me about it. How'd she take it when you first told her last night?"

"I didn't tell her." I pick up another cracker, nibble off the corner, put it down. "Shane did. I wasn't gonna tell her…"

"But how did she react last night? Were you expecting the reaction that you got?"

"…I don't know." I shrug my shoulders. "…It was all weird. She like…" I close my eyes and think back to how mom reacted last night when Shane lifted up my sleeve. "She covered her hand over her mouth and started to cry. And she gave me a hug… and she… she kissed them. It was weird."

"Why was it weird, Jo?"

"Because. My arm was all scabby and gross… but she didn't care. She still kissed them. All of them… all… forty of them. While she cried and I cried, she kept kissing them. And she... she kept hugging me. I kept telling her to get off me because I didn't need a hug, but she wouldn't let me go."

"So you think it was weird that she loves you enough to kiss your scabs? You think that's weird?"

"…I don't know… I guess." I touch another cracker but decide against picking it up and eating on it.

"Right. And I heard that you and Shane had a little bit of a fight? What was that about?"

"I really don't want to talk about that."

"We'll come back to that, then. You wanna tell me about the fist fight you got into?"

"With Lucy? Oh. She came to the house." I look down. "I tried to tell her I didn't want to fight, but that obviously didn't go as planned. Do we have to talk about this?"

"What do you want to talk about today, Jo?"

"Nothing, really."

"What do you feel like you need to work on, in order to get better?" She asks me. I wrinkle my brow at the "get better" remark and she notices. "…Jo, you're very sick. You're a very sick little girl. But you don't have to be. The cutting? That doesn't have to happen. Your outbursts? Those don't have to happen. You're sick, you know. And I'm here to help you get better. Excuse me if I'm a little forward with you, but I just find it so… mind-blowing that you're… you."

"…What do you mean, Mrs. Who?" I put down a puzzle piece and make eye contact with her. "I mean… I know that I'm sick. I know. More than I'm willing to admit. But what does that have to do with you?"

"You never fail to surprise me, Josephine. That's what I mean." She winks at me. "You're easily the most beautiful little girl that I've ever treated… and I've treated a lot of girls. You're beautiful. And you've got the most… firecracker personality I've ever come across. You're obviously smart. You're beautiful, smart and you're just so… loveable. You know, the first thing Dr. Torres said to me was 'Brenda, you're going to have no choice but to fall in love with her.' and she was right. You have a way with people, Jo. You're easy on the eyes… so very sweet. But you're sick. And for some reason, you're reluctant to let me help you. And I'm afraid if you don't let me help you… the world will be without a pretty amazing little girl."

"…You asked, so I'm answering." I sit back in my chair and just look at her. _Let her help you. She's just trying to help… _"I cut." I shrug my shoulders at the fact. "I cut a lot, too. It started out as a once a week thing… then I upped it to once a day… now I can't go a couple hours without releasing myself. I'm in too deep with the cutting, I think. I think about killing myself every single day, but I don't have enough balls to do it. Everybody's always telling me how pretty I am… but I really think that I'm a half a step away from hideous. I have… or HAD a 4.0 GPA, but I feel stupid. All the time, I feel stupid. I'm not worth a damn to anybody, much less myself anymore. What do I need to work on?" I look up at the ceiling. "I need to stop getting so pissed that I hurt people. I need to… stop cutting myself, that's pretty solid. I need to get all of this shit out of my head. I need to forget about being raped, but it's kind of hard to do when people keep asking me questions so they can gather a case against him. I need to put it all behind me, but I can't. I need to go back a month ago and do things just a little differently. Can you help me with that?"

She's scribbling in her notebook again. "Are you admitting to me that you think you're depressed? And your recent depression has caused your preexisting anger issues to flesh out?"

"Well DUH, I'm depressed!"

"Will you see me every other day?" She stops writing. "You're leaving out of here today with two prescriptions, Jo. One for Oleptro… or Trazodone, is the prescription name for it. The Trazodone, you WILL take a half hour before you go to bed. It will make you sleep at night. You WILL sleep. And the other prescription is for a pretty heavy dose of Zoloft. The Zoloft will level you out. I want to see how that does you in. Both of your prescriptions are to be taken DAILY. The Trazodone… take every night before you go to bed. The Zoloft, you should take in the mornings. It might make you a bit groggy for a couple days, but once your system gets used to it, it'll be worth it. I don't want you to keep taking the Adderall the other doctor put you on. The Adderall isn't helping much and the Zoloft should take over with leveling out your anger."

"…I really don't want to be medicated, dude. Can't you just… like….up my sessions and we can just talk more? I really don't want medication. The Adderall… I don't even take that. It makes me feel all weird and I just don't want to be on medication. Please don't…"

"…Jo, I know. I know, honey. I know. And please believe me… I hate to do it. I hate putting my young patients on medication that they could possibly become dependent on. But I wouldn't do it if I didn't think you needed it. Honey, I think you need this. I think you need this… bad. You need to get a restful night's sleep… and the Trazodone will get you a good night's sleep. And you need something to stabilize your moods. Sweetie, I'm going to get you better. You're going to be better. And the medication will help that. Will you try the medication… please?"

"I guess…"

* * *

**Mon, Nov 10, 2013**

**4:53 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **Thought u were coming back 2 school 2day :(

**Me: **i didn't get any sleep last night. tomorrow for sure :)

**Alex: **u ok?

**Me: **yeah i'm fine.

**Alex: **u lying 2 me?

**Me: **no i'm actually okay right now.

**Alex: **alright babe. Whatd u do all day since u didn't come to school?

**Me: **watched tv mostly. went to the doctors. nothing special.

**Alex: **doctor?

**Me: **psychiatrist :I

**Alex: **o. what'd the doctor say?

**Me: **nothing different. i got new anger pills :O and sleeping pills haha.

**Alex: **o really?

**Me: **yup. what are you doing?

**Alex: **Missing u. :-(

**Me: **i'm so far grounded right now though. i wish i could see you. :,(

**Alex: **U cant come over for a little? I miss u a lot babe

**Me: **i'll try but no promises.

**Alex: **ok. well in case u do, I'm gonna go take a shower. I'll text u when I get out. love u.

**Me: **i love you too.


	39. Need This

**A/N: **So I tried to change the rating of this story to M, earlier today. For some reason, when I changed it, it kept taking away/deleting chapter 38. So to avoid that, I'm going to leave the story as rated T because that seems to work pretty well. It'll have some M rated moments for the graphic talking about cutting, talks of sex, etc. I'll give a warning before I amp it up to M rated things though, just because that seems fair. So this chapter is **M** rated for some graphic things. Keep that in mind while reading please. :)

* * *

Someone places their pair of soft, delicate hands in the middle of my back and moves them back and forth, shaking me gently. "Jo… Jo, baby…wake up." Mom's voice is soft and clear in my ear. She stops shaking me and puts her hand to my head. With her four fingers, she moves my hair away from my face. "Wake up, baby girl…" When she's done moving my hair away from my face, she lightly brushes her lips against my cheek. _I was asleep. I actually, actually slept. I slept all night long, too. I slept… _"Come on, baby… wake up." Eventually, I turn over onto my back since I'm lying on my stomach and open up my eyes. "There we go." She sweeps the hair that's sticking to the side of my sweaty cheek away. "How'd you sleep?"

I cover my mouth with my hand and yawn. "Okay…" I rub my eyes and allow myself another brief moment to fully wake up. _I slept beyond okay, actually. I slept great. That pill I took last night worked a true miracle. I haven't slept that dreamlessly in a very long time. And not to mention, I feel… good. I feel amazing, actually. Like I could climb a mountain or something. I feel like I slept a whole day. What time is it? _"What time is it?" I wonder aloud. I still can't believe how well I slept last night. Mom made a makeshift bed for me on the couch, because I'm not really allowed to sleep in Shane's bed anymore since he admitted all of that stuff to me. The couch was really comfortable last night, actually. "I have to get ready for school…" I manage to choke out through the middle of a really big, boisterous yawn.

"It's 10:45, sweetie." She reaches over to the table and picks up an orange bottle and a cup of red liquid. "No school today, either." She twists the cap off the orange bottle, spills a single tiny, oval-shaped tan capsule into her hand and holds it to my mouth. I part my lips so she can pop it into my mouth. Quickly after the pill is in my mouth, she hands me the cup of juice and makes me take a sip of it. "I still don't feel completely comfortable with sending you to school yet. I wanted you to get a night's rest before you had to wake up early. Plus, we have some things to do today."

"Things like what?" I won't lie. I'm a little disappointed that I can't go to school today. I really just wanted to see everyone and hopefully start focusing on school again. But I guess I'm in no position to challenge what mom believes I'm ready for and what I'm not ready for. I move my pillow over so I can sit up comfortably on the couch. The mood pill I just took left a really bad aftertaste. _The only thing I really wanted to do today was go to school. I don't really want to do anything else. I'd rather sit on the couch all day._

"Well for starters, I want to get your hair taken care of. My friend that cuts my hair for me told me that I can go ahead and bring you over today at noon, so that's the first thing on our agenda. And I was thinking that the two of us can grab some lunch or something if you're hungry. Then the DA wants to meet with us at 2:00." She can tell that I'm not exactly comfortable with that, because she puts her hand on my shoulder and lets me know that she's there for me. "Honey, if this isn't something that you want to do…I can ask if we can push it back another week if you're not ready. Nobody's making you do anything you don't want to do, Jo."

"Wh…" My jaw starts to tremble as I try to talk. I take a moment to steady myself before I attempt to say anything else. "What do I have to talk to them about?" In all honesty, I don't really care what happens to Jason anymore. I mean, of course I want him to get in trouble for what he did to me. Of course I feel like he needs to be punished and I don't want him to feel like he's gotten away with anything. I'm just ready to forget about everything, though. I don't want to talk about it anymore, I don't want to relive any moment of it anymore, I don't feel like explaining myself to anyone. I just don't care anymore and I want everything to just go away. "Can't you just tell them whatever they want to know?"

"I wish I could, toots. But they have to talk to you. I'll be in the room, if that makes you feel better." She lovingly ruffles my hair. "They just really have to ask you some questions and get your side of the story. I promise I won't leave you alone in the room with them and I won't let them ask you anything that'll make you too uncomfortable. You're not talking to anyone that's against you. Everyone that you're talking to today is on your side. But if you're seriously not ready to speak about it, I'll tell them that you don't want to talk about it today. I won't make you do anything you don't want to do."

"…So, what happens after I tell the DA my side of the story? Is it all over? I just have to tell them the truth, right? I have to tell them what happened, answer whatever they ask and it's over…isn't it?"

"I wish it was that easy." She genuinely looks upset for me. "Right now, I'm not sure what's going to happen after today's meeting. All I know is that this is the last piece of evidence they need to proceed with the trial. I gave them the pictures of your bruises we took, I informed them about the meeting I had here with the Myers' myself, and I told them about the night you came here. They just have to talk to you now, honey. They can proceed once they talk to you…"

"So I'm holding it up. Great." I mumble. "Whatever, I'll talk to them. But I don't want to talk about it for too long. I'll answer whatever questions they have and all that… but if they ask me for details, I'm leaving. Okay?"

"I already told you that I won't let them make you feel uncomfortable." She grabs my hand and pulls me off the couch. "Go put some clothes on so we can get ready to leave."

"Yes ma'am." I fix my shorts which just so happened to be stuck up in the crack of my butt, giving me a wedgie. I scoop my phone up off the coffee table in front of me and head up the steps, looking down at it the whole time. I have two new text messages, one from Shane one from Alex. I check the one from Alex first, because I'm pretty sure I already know what he wants. He wants to know why I'm not in school today like I promised him I would be. I slide my finger across the lock screen, punch in my code and check the first text message from Alex.

**Tues, Nov 10, 2013**

**9:35 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **good morning :-) txt me when u wake up & check ur phone. i have something to ask u. love u.

**11:15 a.m.**

**Me: **hey :) i'm awake now. what did you need?

I guess he's not really all that concerned about why I'm not in school when I said I would be. I don't know, maybe Shane filled him in and told him that I wasn't coming. He probably knew more about the fact that I wasn't coming today than I did. I didn't know I wasn't going to school until I woke up. While I wait for Alex to text me back, I check the text I got from Shane. It says I just received his text a half hour ago. He probably texted me at the start of lunch.

**Tues, Nov 10, 2013**

**10:44 a.m.**

**Text Message**

**Shane: **Ask mom if me and u can be ungrounded 4 the night.

**11:16 a.m.**

**Me: **why?

I put my phone down on Shane's bed and shut the door to his bedroom behind me. I can't just ask mom to un-ground us if I don't know what for. She'll look at me like I'm half-cocked, crazy and out of my mind. Plus, if it's for some selfish, beneficial-to-Shane-only reason, I'm not asking. I lift my shirt up and pull it over my head. Shirtless, I go over to one of my duffle bags and rummage through it for a shirt and a bra I can put on. I find a long-sleeved, white t-shirt and a padded bra to put on. The t-shirt I picked out was a birthday gift from Shane. I told him not to buy me anything for my birthday because I knew that his mom couldn't afford to give him money for him to buy me a nice gift this year like he always did for my birthday. He bought me this white t-shirt, though. He said he saw it in the store and it reminded him of me because I look like a Teenage-Mutant Ninja Turtle. The shirt is white with purple sleeves and all four of the ninja turtles on the front. I take my arms out of the straps of the sports bra I wore to bed last night and pull that over my head too. Just as I hook my regular padded bra around my chest, my phone buzzes. I snatch it up and look at it.

**11:21 a.m.**

**Shane: **bcuz leah's having a movie night from 5-10:30 bcuz her mom has 2 go pick her bro up from college n she'll b gone 4 a few hours

**Me: **it's a school night shane.

**Shane: **no shit Jo. that's why its from 5 to 10:30 only

**Me: **whatever. who's all coming to it?

**Shane: **Well it was only suppost to be for me and her only but I kno mom won't let me go without u so its just u and me but she said she can tell steff and heather to come if u want so u wont b alone

**Me: ***supposed. & can alex come? if alex can come then she doesn't have to invite steph and heather. but if he can't then i don't want to come at all. me and steph and heather don't want to sit there and bask in the shane and leah-ness. no thanks to third, fourth and fifth wheeling.

**Shane: **come on jo. if u don't come then I won't b allowed to and u know mom wont let me. ill ask her if alex is allowed but if hes not can u just plz come anyway? I really want 2 spend the night with leah for a little bit

**Me: **ask her about alex. if alex can come then i'll come. but if he's not allowed then i'll just chill out with steph and heather. just warn us before the two of you do something gross. bc none of us want to listen to that.

**Shane: **k. let me kno what mom says about it

**Me: **i will. are you at lunch?

**Shane: **yea i just sat down 2 eat

**Me: **are you with alex?

**Shane: **yea

**Me: **tell him to text me back.

**Shane: **I did.

**Shane: **and Leah said she don't care if alex comes

**Me: **okay. i'll ask mom in a minute. i'm getting dressed right now.

**Shane: **alexs fone died

**Me: **wtf?

**Shane: **he can't txt u back bc his fone is dead. he said he wanted 2 know if u wanted 2 catch a movie this weeknd

**Me: **yeah. tell him to text me later bc i have to get ready to go. tell him i'll see him tonight if mom says yes.

**Shane: **k.

**Shane: **wait j b4 u go, u kno that its not really a movie night right?

**Me: **then wtf is it? i'm not lying to mom so if we're not going to leahs then you need to tell me where we're going shane. we already got in enough trouble & she already put my ass on house arrest. i'm not lying to her.

**Shane: **House arrest lol. but chill we really r going 2 chill at leahs but I doubt that we watch movies that's what I mean

**Me: **i am on house arrest . she won't even let me go to school. if that's not house arrest then what is it? lmao. & oh i already know that. that's why i wanted to bring alex.

**Shane: **k.

* * *

"Thanks again for squeezing her in today, Nessa." I just listen and look around while mom greets her friend. This is probably the nicest house I've ever been inside. It's not very big, but it's not exactly small either. It's a decent size. Mom urges me to take off my shoes and I do. I follow her lead and put them in the corner beside the door after I take them off. I can tell that the owner of this house is neat and very tidy. Everything has its own place and there isn't a sign of mess anywhere. The only indication that a child or children live here are the tiny, multicolored shoes hanging in a shoe caddy on the back of the door. "I don't trust to take her to a salon to get it cut… you'll understand why. I want someone I can trust."

"It's no problem, Kell." Her voice matches her house. It's warm, nurturing and motherly. I can tell that she's a mother just by the way she talks. "How long have I been cutting you and the boys' hair? What's another head to cut?" If I didn't know any better, I'd say that she and mom are sisters. The only differences are that she's heavier set with longer, straight black hair. Her skin is just a little bit darker than mom's, too. But other than that, the two are practically identical. "Come on to the kitchen." She waves her hand at us as she walks back down a long corridor into a lit room. While I walk through the hall to the kitchen, I notice pictures on the wall of three different children. _She has three young children and her house is this spotless? _

"I don't want you to take too much off. I want her to keep her length. But she has dead ends… I think. I don't know; you know more about hair than I do." Mom puts her hands on my back and leads me to a chair at the kitchen table. Even the kitchen is flawless. The walls are made of deep red bricks. All the appliances and furniture are black. I stop looking around so much and sit down in my chair. "Then I started thinking that maybe a salon would've been better to take her to. I just don't trust it, though." I trace my fingers over the marble pattern in the kitchen table and sigh. Mom lights up a cigarette while her friend opens up a closet in the corner of her kitchen and pulls out a large black bag. "It'd be easy to go scissor-crazy in her head. You'll see why…"

"Take your hair out for me, honey." Her friend pats me on my shoulder and unzips the bag she put on the table. I nod twice, grab onto the holder I used to throw it up in the bun it's in and pull. I have to shake it to get the ponytail holder out without tangling it. "Oh shit." The woman's voice is low, gasping when I let it all down. _Yeah… I have a lot of hair, woman. If you can work with it, you can work a miracle. _"…Whoa." Her hand runs through it. Mom has the "I told you so" look written all over her face. "…I've never seen this much hair… on ONE head." She just keeps combing her fingers through it. "And it's long, too. I've seen thick hair. I've seen lots of thick hair… but I've never seen hair this thick with the length to match it." She looks over at mom. "And on a white girl, too." That comment actually makes me giggle. "I'd expect this on an Indian's head… hell, even a Hispanic head. But not a little white girl. How often do you cut it?"

"…I don't." I grab a piece of it and just stare at the split ends. "My grandma was the only person to ever have her hands in it. She didn't trust anybody else to cut it, either. And I've never actually had it cut before… just little trims. I've never had a haircut. I got side bangs cut out once by some girl at the mall…which gave my gram a heart attack, because she felt like she took too much off. So she never took me to anybody else."

"I told you, Ness. I told you." Mom snuffs out her cigarette in the ashtray in the middle of the table and blows out one last puff of smoke. "I don't know what to do with it. It sheds, it clogs my shower drains. Poor thing can't do anything with it. I try all the time to weave French braids into it, but they don't hold. It's pretty, but I think she should've been had a real haircut. Or at least she should've had it thinned out. Can you thin it out for her?"

"I can…" The woman picks up a comb and parts my hair down the middle. "But I won't. I'm not thinning her hair out. This girl has beautiful hair on her head. I'm not gonna mess with it too much. I think I'm gonna take like…" She grabs one handful of my hair and ties it up with a ponytail holder. "I'm gonna take an inch or so off. Just an inch. I'll cut out her bangs again. I'll straighten it out for her. I'll gloss it, and that's it. I'm not thinning it, Kelly. Leave her hair alone." She starts running a comb through the part that's not tied up. "She's pretty. You're a pretty one. You ever think about putting her in modeling or something, Kell?" _I'm totally not model-material. I'm too fat to be a model, first of all. I think I have the height to be one, but I'm totally not skinny enough. _"I'm serious. You're gorgeous, honey."

"Thank you." I tap my fingers along the table.

"You should've seen her when she was little. She looked just like one of those little Cabbage-Patch babies. Prettiest little girl I've ever laid my eyes on, to this day. Shane brought her inside the house one day and I thought she was a live baby doll. Just as cute and as chunky as she wanted to be. But boy, she was a holy terror." _Stop talking about me like you know me. It's not that mom doesn't know me, because she obviously does. But… stop bragging about me. I'm not your kid to be bragging about. Mothers brag about their children the way you're doing. Maybe she really does think of me as her child. She obviously feels that she has the right to brag to her friends about me. _"Her grandmother used to dress her so nicely. Everything would be all planned out and color coordinated so well. She looked and dressed like a little princess. But Vanessa, when I tell you the child was a NIGHTMARE, I mean it. She was a nightmare. I used to have to scrape Shane's ass up off the concrete pavement at least three times a week because she knocked him out. You'd never know the child hits as hard as she does just by looking at her." _My gram used to tell her friends stories about me like this. Miss Kelly really does love you like a daughter… _"The cute ones are always the bad ones, though. And she's not as ornery as she used to be… are you, Jo?"

"…Guess not."

**x x x **

I grab ahold of the glass they sat in front of me and take a small sip. Underneath the table, I cross my legs and play with the hole in the knee part of my jeans. I guess it was courteous how they started with the mild questions first. Like my name, my birthday, my GPA, what I like to do for fun. I appreciate the fact that they eased into the hard questions, I do. But I can't help but feel like I'm the criminal here. Why are they questioning me so harshly? I didn't do anything wrong, did I? I politely clear my throat and make eye contact with the bald man sitting in front of me, holding the tape recorder. "Can you repeat the question, please?" I look over at mom just to make sure she's still there. She's not allowed to say anything, because they don't want to risk getting her voice caught on the tape too. I feel like I'm being detained and questioned for a murder. "I'm not sure I heard you correctly." I put on my fake, "I'm the most polite girl in the world" voice and rack my brain to think about how I can go about saying this. I know exactly what he asked. Asking him to repeat the question is buying me some time, though.

"Can you tell me, in as much detail as possible, about the first incident that you and Mr. Myers had sexual, physical contact?" The bald guy repeats his question and scoots the tape recorder a little closer to me. The man sitting beside the bald guy is writing everything that is being said down. He writes fast. "Starting at about… 3:30 in the morning on Saturday, November 1, 2013."

"Um…" I had tried so hard to forget all about that night. I really don't want to relive it. I really just want all of this to go away and be over. But if I look uncooperative, they might think I'm lying about the whole thing. "I had um… I had a fight with my boyfriend. I snuck out the house around… 1:30-2:00 that night to go over and talk to my boyfriend. While at my boyfriend's house, we had a fight, in which he told me that I should go home. After the fight was over, he told me to go home. I went back to the Myers' house, where I took a shower and got into bed for the night." I take another sip of the water.

"Your boyfriend's name and address?"

_What does Alex have to do with anything? He has nothing to do with any of this. _"…Alexander Karev… 1889 Green Street… here in the central district."

"Continue."

"…Well um…so I got into bed for the night." I can do this. This is going to help me. I can do this… I can do this. "I had been crying before I had the chance to fall asleep, because I was upset about the fight I had with my boyfriend. Um… at around 3:00 or so, the door to my bedroom opened up. It was him… it was Jason, I mean. He… sat down." I close my eyes because it helps me to unblock it enough to remember it. "He sat down on my bed and told me that he had heard me crying from down the hall. He asked me why I was crying and I told him that I had gotten into a fight with Alex and that Alex had broken up with me, as a result of the fight. He gave me a hug and told me that he was sorry. I hugged him back and I eventually pulled away… or I tried to pull away, rather. He wouldn't let me. He um… he kissed me instead. On my lips."

"Did the kiss involve any tongue that you recall?"

"Yes." I nod. "I pulled away from him again and asked him to leave. I asked him if we would leave and he said no. He kissed me again and forced my head against the pillow on my bed. Um… we… we engaged in a brief struggle where I had pushed his face away… because at this point, he was kissing my neck and touching me… below my neck."

"He touched your breasts?"

"…Yeah." I bite down on my bottom lip and ignore the fact that my stomach is a little jumpy. "So I kept trying to push him away from my body, but I couldn't get him off. He… he asked me if I had broken up with my boyfriend and I told him that yes, we were broken up. He told me that he was happy, because then that means he could have me. I told him that I didn't want him and I didn't like him in… a sexual way. He…" I close my eyes again. "He grabbed my legs and forced them apart… lied his body between them and started kissing me again. He said that he really wanted to… have sex with me… because I was sexy. And I told him that I didn't want to. I had told him… I said not tonight."

"He was lying, pelvis to pelvis with you, but no clothes were off?"

"Correct."

"And at that point, did he have an erection?"

"…Yes."

"Continue."

"I put my hands on his chest and pushed him off. I told him that I was too tired to have sex with him. He insisted that we do it. He um… I told him that I really didn't want to and that I wasn't ready. I threatened that I would scream if he didn't leave me alone. He… put his hand over my mouth so I wouldn't. And took my t-shirt off. He… touched my chest again… and then proceeded to take off my pants. I fought him on that one. He ripped my pants off my body and… that was it. I told him again that I didn't want to, and he stuffed his hand against my nose which made it bleed."

"Your nose bled?"

"Yes sir." I sip the water against. "I kept telling him that I didn't want to… but he told me that he didn't care. And he… um…" _How do I say this in the most tactful way possible? I can't exactly just say yep, then he stuck it inside me, humped me for an hour and went on about his business, like I want to say. _"It went… in."

"The actual intercourse happened at this point?"

"Mhm." I wipe a bead of sweat away from my forehead. I'm alright. I can do this. Just two incidents to tell him about. I can make it… if I don't throw up first. "It happened for about an hour."

"Did he ejaculate?"

"…I don't remember."

The bald guy looks at me like he thinks I'm lying. "Did he have a condom on?"

"No."

"So you remember that he didn't wear a condom, but you don't remember if he ejaculated? Plausible."

_Are you calling me a liar, dude? _My top lip curls up into a snarl and my tone just jumps from sweet-as-can-be to the nastiest thing on the planet. "_Obviously_ I don't remember if I _told _you that I don't remember."

"Jo." Mom touches my arm. She can tell that my head is about to explode and I'm about to blow up on this guy for implying that I'm a liar, but her touch calmed me just a little. The man snickers and shakes his head, as if he's disgusted with me or something.

I clear my throat. "I don't remember. My mind was kind of focused on getting him off me. I was focusing on getting him off me…" I fold my hands in mock politeness because I'm about to get real nasty with this man. "I suspect you've never been raped before. I suspect that you don't have a daughter that has ever been raped, either. If you have a wife, however, why don't you go home and ask her if she would remember if the bastard that raped her had the audacity to CUM before he was finished with her." I unfold my hands and push my chair out. "I don't remember if he did or if he didn't. I assume he did, because the WHITE STAINS on the BED I had to sleep in wouldn't suggest otherwise. But like I said, I don't remember for sure." I lick my lips. "…So should I start from the top? About the next two times he sexually harassed me? Or do you just want me to skip the part where he _fingered_ me and jump right to the next night that he _fucked_ me? Either one's fine with me."

"Okay, we're done." Mom grabs my arm TIGHT. "Josephine, let's go. NOW." As soon as I stand up, she drags me out the door. "That is NOT okay, Jo. NOT OKAY." I roll my eyes at her. "You don't talk like that! To ANYONE. You don't talk like that, ever. That is NOT okay. You don't EVER… EVER speak like that again."

I just shrug my shoulders.

* * *

"How'd your meeting with the District Attorney go?" Ever since he noticed that my hair is just a little bit different, he hasn't stopped playing with it. He says that it's the silkiness of it that he likes, but I think he's just too embarrassed to admit that he actually likes playing with hair. Whatever helps him sleep at night. Before I tell him about how nasty I got with the DA, I just want to enjoy this moment for a little while longer. While he's running his hands through my hair, I'm running my own fingers through his, periodically uncurling a curl or two here and there. His hair is so soft and fluffy. We're lying face to face with each other, too. Our noses are touching and if I lean forward just a little, we'd be kissing. "Are you gonna tell me?" The hand that isn't busy with my hair is on my waist. Both of my hands are in his hair though.

"It went okay." I'm still taken aback by his flawlessness. He's just perfect. I especially love the way his sideburns come down and stop just at his cheeks. I take one hand out of his hair and stroke his face. It's smooth. He shaved for me. "The guy was a total asshole though. I had to tell him off. That's why me and Shane were late getting over here. Mom wasn't gonna let us come because of how I talked to the guy." I can't help myself. Our faces are touching and our lips are just inches apart from each other. I jut my head forward so our lips meet for a little peck. "I missed you… so much."

"You always let your mouth get you in trouble." The hand on my waist tightens and he pulls me closer to him. "Your bad temper is so hot, though." He puts his lips against mine again. His hand moves from my waist to up underneath my shirt. His fingernails graze the skin on my back lightly which gives me chills. "You're always getting yourself into something though. You gotta stop that." Just for a second, his lips touch my neck.

"I know… but I can't help it sometimes." Following his lead, I put both my hands underneath his shirt. His abs are so hard. I have THE hottest boyfriend on the planet, I'm sure of it. I put my hand against his jawline and bring his mouth to mine again. Instead of a harmless peck this time, I kiss him like I mean it. I know he told me not to, but I'm curious to see if he'll react. When he goes to pull his tongue out of my mouth and back into his own, I gently catch it with my teeth and scuff them along. Just like I thought he would, he goes a little bit crazy when I do that. With one move, he grabs my body and puts me underneath of him.

He moves his face from mine and buries it in my neck. He's literally going nuts because I just did that. He's kissing my neck a thousand times a minute, stopping occasionally to suck on it. His fingers are locked inside mine and he's holding my hands over my head so I can't move. My mind is working fast to find a reason why I should stop him. It's not like I'm not ready. I'm ready. So that's not an excuse. It's not like Shane and Leah are sitting here watching, because they're not. They went upstairs about a half hour ago because they wanted to do it in the shower. That's not an excuse. I can't think of a reason why we shouldn't, so I'm leaning towards the fact that maybe we should. I slide my foot up so that my knee is in a bent position. The couch is big enough for it. Should we? I don't know. His fingers are playing with the rim of my shirt, dancing around the fact that he wants me to take it off. I showered before I came here because I knew something like this might happen. I smell good. That's not an excuse. _If you can't find an excuse not to, then just do it. I'll shut up if you want to do it. _

I put my hands against his chest and push him up off me. He takes my hint, unfolds our hands from each other and sits up. I can tell by the look on his face that he's unsure if the push meant for him to stop or if I just wanted him off me for a second. Because I know that he's confused about what the push means, I don't take long to grab the edge of my shirt and pull it over my head. I toss it on the floor next to the couch and lean up to kiss him again. He lies back on top of me and starts kissing me again. Since I took my shirt off, his fingers play with the button of my jeans next. He unbuttons the button and unzips the zipper. I can tell that he's frustrated with how tight my jeans are because he can't properly get a hand down them. Again, I put my hands against his chest and push, but this time I don't push him completely off. I push just enough to let him know that I want to be on top.

He lets me straddle him without a problem. I move my hair out of my way and lean down to kiss his neck too. He unstraps my bra without an issue this time and rips it off me. I'm not sure how I ended up topless and he's still fully clothed. I grab the ends of his shirt and pull. He helps me to take it off. He tosses his shirt on the floor, along with my bra and my shirt. I don't think he likes not-being in control, because he wraps his arms around my waist and sits up. He buries his face in my chest, softly planting kisses around my boobs. I close my eyes and hold his head against my chest so he can't move it away. His tongue circles around my boob and of course, my mouth drops open and I gasp like I usually do. My hands leave his head and run down to his back. He aggressively, almost angrily wraps his hands around the waist of my jeans and yanks them down. I lie back flat against the couch, lift up my hips and help him take them off. As if he wants to resume where we left off a couple days ago, his head immediately goes to my stomach. His tongue plays with my belly ring for a little bit before he grabs my thighs and parts them. He doesn't even bother to take my underwear off, which I find weird. I hope I don't smell bad. I mean, I've never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER had a problem with that before. EVER. But still, the thought crosses my mind. His tongue pokes the inside of my thigh and my eyelids flutter shirt.

He flattens out his tongue and traces it from the inside of my thigh, all the up to my hip. I need a pillow or something that I can bite onto. He stops at my hip and sucks on it like he sucked on my neck while his hands busy themselves with taking my underwear off. I lift my hips up again to make it easier for him. He puts them on the floor with the rest of our clothes when he gets them off. Without any further teasing, his mouth actually goes there. "Oh my god…" I whisper to myself. When I look down, all I see is the top of his head. All he's doing is pretty much just kissing around down there but I'm so full of anticipation and eagerness that the kissing is fine with me.

He stops the kissing and actually starts to use his tongue. It's still kind of kissing, but it's the kind of kiss that he'd kiss me on the mouth with; a soft, sweet, French kiss. And once the single kiss is over, his tongue stays and works me from bottom to top in a continuous, stroking motion. I cover my face with my hands because I'm about to squeal and I don't want to. My breathing unsteadies and I'm just huffing out air. My back arches just a little and my chest bucks upward. "Oh my fucking…" Just as I'm about to finish that sentence, two of his fingers meet me and my jaw just… drops. I can't keep doing this. This is way too much. It feels… too good, if that makes any type of sense at all. "Alex… Alex…" I'm not even sure if he can understand the fact that I'm calling his name through my out-of-breath panting. I grab onto his hair, not only to get his attention but because it's really helping me to refrain from screaming. I'm not sure what's making me more crazy; what his mouth is doing or what his fingers are doing. _Okay, no. I need something more than just fingers… and tongue action. _I bite my bottom lip, because I really don't want this to stop. "Alex…" I stop pulling his hair and try to move his head away. _Oh shit. I hope he doesn't want me to return the favor. I mean, I totally will. If he wants that… I'll do it. But I'm probably no good at it. I've never done that before and I'm sure he wouldn't like it. I'm probably terrible at it. _

He catches my drift and willingly moves his head from between my legs, but not completely. He doesn't stop with his fingers, but he does stop with his mouth. He kisses the outside of me, up to my lower stomach, past my belly ring, the middle of my boobs and up to my neck. I'm still breathing a little weird because he's still using his fingers on me. "You want me to stop?" He murmurs in my ear. I shake my head because if I actually speak to him, more than the word "no" will come out. "No?" I shake my head again. "Mmmkay." He kisses right below my ear. "I won't stop." I roll my eyes to the back of my head and try so hard to even out my breathing but I can't. I'm surprised that I've been able to keep myself from moaning this long, honestly. He gently picks up the pace down below and I'm half tempted to cry out in pleasure, but I don't. Once I can actually concentrate enough to steady my hands, I reach down below and unbutton his pants. I kind of get what he meant when he said that he's too worried about other things to take off his pants.

As much as I don't want to, I reach down with my hands to stop his hand. I want him to know that I want to go further than just kissing and touching tonight. When he gets the fact that I want him to stop with the fingers, he wraps his arms around my waist again and kisses me. I kiss him back, but I'm concentrating more on getting his pants off. I untie the drawstrings that hold them up and pull them down. Finally, he helps me take them off so that he's in his boxers. My fingers instantly go to the rim of his boxers too. I try pulling them down but he won't let me. "…We don't have to do this… you know that, don't you?" He moves my hands away from his boxers and looks at me with sincerity.

"I want to." I quickly put my lips back against his before he ruins the mood and before I lose the nerve I have right now. I grab onto his boxers again and this time, he doesn't fight me on it. I pull them down around his knees and he kicks them off for me. _Holy… _I won't even focus on it. I won't think about it because if I do, and I start to realize that THAT is what I have to work with… I won't do this. And I really, really want to do this. I wasn't exactly expecting him to be small. I knew that he wasn't going to be small. But I wasn't necessarily expecting him to be that big, either. He won't hurt me and I trust that, so I just put it out of my mind. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, now. He lies me down flat against the couch again and lies on top of me. He carefully aligns himself with my pelvis and kisses me on my cheek.

His elbows are bent and resting in the nooks of my shoulders. His fingers are all tangled in the lengths of my hair and his face is in the crook of my neck. He kisses my neck softly with a little peck. "I love you." He mumbles to me. He takes one hand out of my hair and holds himself with it down below. _OH CRAP, WAIT._

"…Wait… wait…" I stop him. He doesn't seem to care that I stopped him though. "…Do you have a condom?"

His face goes flat. "…Shit. I left my wallet at home. I wasn't expecting to do this tonight." He sighs. "…We're gonna get this right sometime." He climbs off of me and starts grabbing clothes.

"…It's okay." I urgently pull him back down on top of me. "It's okay… it's okay. Just pull out." I kiss his lips. "I need this." _Have you lost your damn mind? You're not that stupid, are you? You know damn well pulling out NEVER works. Your period is right around the fucking corner, so you're probably fertile right now. Are you TRYING to have his baby? _I thought you said you were going to shut up for this. _Shutting up. _I need to do this. If I don't do this now, I don't think I ever will. I really don't know if I ever will if I don't do it now. I'm ready, he's ready and I really need this. Plus, it's Alex… nothing's gonna happen. I'll be fine. "I need this…"

"…Okay." He agrees to it and resumes his prior positioning. With the same hand as before, he holds himself below and guides it inside me. _Whoa… whoa… _It takes my body a second to adjust to having him in there, but it doesn't take too long. I put my hands flat against his back and try pushing him down so he's lying flat on top of me. He makes it slow, so that when it's going all the way in it doesn't hurt. Finally, he's all the way down and all the way on top of me. His face is in my neck again and I can feel that his breathing is just a little bit unsteady too. He's not even moving yet. He's just resting there, giving me time to adjust. I'm adjusted, though. I rub his back just a little bit to let him know that I'm okay. All he needed was my okay, it seems. He draws his bottom half back and makes the very first thrust in.

Now is the only tie that it's almost impossible for me to hold back a moan. "Ughh…." He thrusts again. I hold back a moan this time. "Alex?"

"Hmm?"

"I love you."


	40. Aftermath

"You sure you're okay?" He pulls his shirt over his head and adjusts it so it's straight. I put my socks back on and nod my head. I'm freaking out a little bit over the fact that I just had unprotected sex with him, if you want me to be honest. My period's supposed to be here in a couple days and I pay attention enough in health class to know that right before your period and right after your period are your most fertile days. I think I might've lost my mind, because for some reason, having sex without a condom tonight sounded like a really good idea about 45 minutes ago. It doesn't sound too good anymore, of course. I'm going to try not to freak out until I miss my period, if I miss it at all. I'll try not to panic too much until then. "Really? 'Cause you haven't said a word to me since we finished…" He hands me my tank top.

"I'm fine. I'm totally cool." I stand up and button my jeans. I run my hand through my hair and shake it since it's sweaty. _So what happens if you do end up pregnant? _Well, I don't have any idea how I'd come up with the money to get an abortion, first of all. Personally, I believe women have the right to choose whether or not they want the baby, but for my own personal preference, I'd rather struggle to feed a baby every day than kill it off. So despite the fact that I don't have any means of getting an abortion if I am pregnant, I wouldn't get one anyway. I'd rather love a baby, struggle to feed it, struggle to put it in diapers than to kill it. That's just me. So if I do end up pregnant, I guess I'd just love it. _Love doesn't buy diapers, formula, toys, all that good stuff. It's not enough to love a kid that you can't financially support, idiot. _Then I'd give it up for adoption. I don't know. I just hope I'm not pregnant. Stop freaking out about it.

"Did you… yanno…." He ties the drawstrings to his pants and stands up too. "Like it?"

"Mhm." I nod my head at him. "I loved it. You… really know what you're doing." He slides his arms around my waist and pulls me towards him. He kisses my cheek. "I'm really okay, Alex. You don't have to keep asking me. I'd let you know if I wasn't."

"So you wanna do it again?" His fingers tangle up with my belly ring as he kisses my neck. "You weren't so bad yourself, you know…" I smile and turn so that I'm facing him. I kiss him on his lips and put my hands on my back. He pulls me down on the couch and deepens the kiss that we share. I'd love to do it again, obviously. But first of all, I don't want to push myself too far. Halfway through it, I did flash back to the whole Jason thing but I was able to talk myself out of that. I don't want to test it too much. But most importantly, we don't have protection and I was already stupid once so I'm not going to be stupid again.

"Mmm… I'd love to." I pull away from his mouth. "But no condom…"

He shrugs his shoulders. "So I'll pull out again." He kisses me again.

"Hmm… I don't think so." I kiss him one last time and pull away for good. "…I'm going to go see what's taking Shane and Leah so long." I run my fingers through my damp, sweaty hair and tie it up in a high ponytail. The two of them have been upstairs for a very long time now. I'd better just go check and make sure they didn't die or anything of that nature. "And I'm thirsty, so I'm going to grab something to drink too." I try to lift myself up so I can get off the couch, but Alex wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me back down. A smile creeps across my lips and I put my hand over his. "Come on… let me up. I'll come back…" He totally ignores me and puts his lips to my back. He's kissing my shoulder blade and groping my hips through my jeans. "You're not gonna let me go, are you?" He shakes his head and unbuttons my jeans again. Because they're so tight, he can't only stuff one hand inside of them. "Look… I'll be right back, okay?" Before he can go any further than putting a hand down the jeans I JUST put back on, I stand up and force his hand out. The both of us literally just got dressed and he's already trying to take my clothes back off.

He groans and sits straight up. "Who cares about what they're doing? What about what I want to do?" His hair is all sweaty and messed up and his eyes are locked below my waist. "Don't you care about what I want?" He slowly runs his tongue across his lips and bites down on his bottom lip like he's trying to restrain himself with something. "What I really…. really…. really want."

"I'm coming back, I swear." I button my jeans back up and fix my tank top. "Just don't miss me too much." I sigh dreamily and head towards the steps.

* * *

I think I might regret having sex with Alex tonight. Not regret it as in, I wish I never did it. But regret it as in, I wish I would've waited. It was amazing, don't get me wrong. It was amazing. He was nice, gentle when he needed to be, rough when I wanted him to be. It was everything I think it should've been. But I really wish it hadn't happened tonight. I wish it happened maybe tomorrow night or something. I wish he had a condom, I wish I had already been deeper in with my birth control pills, I wish I hadn't been stupid. But the fact is that yes, I was stupid. And the more I sit here thinking about it, the more I scare myself into the realization that I might be pregnant already. Seriously, what am I going to do with a _baby? _A baby I wouldn't dare kill, because it's not at fault in the situation. A baby that I don't need, though. What do I do now?

There's that whole "the morning after" pill, but you have to be eighteen to buy it. I'm not eighteen and I couldn't even ask Alex to buy it for me because he's not eighteen yet either. He won't be eighteen until sometime next week and I don't have until next week to wait. If I wait a week, the kid will already be the size of a jellybean or something. I'm not even feeling sorry for myself at this point. I feel sorry for the baby in my stomach. What a shit mother it's already been dealt. _The apple doesn't fall far from the tree… _Seriously, the poor kid. I know what it's like to have been born to a terrible mother. The kid is going to be scarred for the rest of its life, all because I couldn't wait until we got a condom to have sex. The 4.0 GPA means nothing at this point, because I'm fucking stupid.

The weirdest part about all of it though, is that I think I'm starting to understand my own mother. I think I'm beginning to understand why she wouldn't have wanted me. She was around my age when she had me and she didn't want me. I guess I can understand how she wouldn't have wanted me. I wouldn't want a baby at my age either. _If she didn't want you, she could've just aborted you though. Why didn't she do that? _I don't know. Maybe she was personally against abortions like I am. _Well if you don't want to end up like your mom, why don't you just abort your baby? That'd be better than abandoning it at a fire station, don't you think? _I'd kill it before it had a heartbeat though. I'd kill it before it can start to feel things. I don't think I'd be able to live with myself if I killed my baby and it could actually feel me killing it. _You could always just keep it. Be a better mom to it than your mom was to me. _I'm not keeping a baby. It's not that I wouldn't love it, because I would. I really would love a baby that me and Alex made. But it would deserve a better mommy than me. I just don't know. _You think your mom was this beaten up about leaving you? _No, probably not. _Can you imagine what that must've been like for her to leave you?_

_She waited two weeks to leave you, so obviously she tried to take care of you. _No. She didn't try. She gave birth to me at home. She had me in her bedroom, alone on the floor while she was high. I saw all the papers about it once when I was snooping around in grammy's room, looking for a picture of her. I've never seen a picture of her, by the way. I don't know her name and I don't know what she looks like. But I saw all the court documents while I was snooping. There were police reports, abandonment papers, my birth certificate, hospital documents and everything. She gave birth to me in a one bedroom apartment that she shared with seven other addicts. She had me on a dirty floor and she never even took me to a hospital. She wrapped me up in a pillowcase because she didn't have a blanket, put me in a bed, took a shower and left me there in the house. If I remember what I read off the police report correctly, one of the other addicts she lived with tried to take care of me. She fed me milk from a carton which nearly killed me, because HEY LOOK, I HAVE A MILK ALLERGY, but I guess the carton of milk was enough to keep me alive without starving to death for two weeks until she finally put me in a shoebox, put the lid over it and left me. Like I was garbage.

I'm not bragging, but I was a super-cute baby. There's a picture of me that my grammy took when her and pappy came to get me out of the police's custody. I was super adorable. Of course I looked a little bit like a furless squirrel, but that's beside the point. I was tiny enough to fit into a shoebox, but chubby enough to need a diaper size that was bigger than a newborn butt. Much like I do now, I had a shit-ton of black hair on my head but it was really curly back then. I was super cute. How could she not want a baby like that? If my baby looked like me, I wouldn't just throw it away like it was trash. At least I don't think I would've. You know, at this point, I don't know if I'm pregnant for sure or not. I'm honestly leaning towards the fact that I'm not, but just in case I am, I feel like I owe the kid inside me an apology.

I look up at the ceiling through the pitch-blackness in the living room and sigh. Underneath my covers, I lift up my t-shirt slowly and push the palm of my hand to my abdomen. I adjust my head on my pillow so that I'm comfortable and clear my throat. I'll make this quick because I'm actually going to school tomorrow and it's already going on midnight so I need to go to sleep soon. I part my lips and start whispering. "…I really don't know if you're actually in there or not… but if you are… and you can hear me… I'm sorry, okay? Sorry that you got stuck with me as your mother. I'm… I'm not keeping you… if you actually exist. I'm not keeping you. But that doesn't mean that I hate you or anything, because I don't. I actually kind of love you. I'm not keeping you because I love you and you deserve better than me. I'm…" I reach up and wipe away some tears that are running rampant out of my eyes. "I'm not sure what I'm going to do with you. I promise you won't feel anything, if I make a bad decision though. And um… uh… your dad. Yeah… he's a nice guy too. You'd be lucky to have him, I think. But that doesn't matter… because you don't deserve me. Whatever. I'm sorry again, okay? I'm sorry I dragged you into my shit-fest of a life. But I do love you. A lot, actually. More than you'll probably ever know. I'm still sorry, and I probably always will be sorry… so yeah. That's that."

I feel better after talking to the possibly-there fetus inside of me, but I don't feel completely better. I know exactly what would make me feel better. The palm of my left hand itches and it's calling me. If I do it, it'll make me feel good enough to go sleep. If I do it, I'll just do it once…long enough to feel the blood running down my arm. I'll do it, I'll come back downstairs, I'll take my sleeping pill, I'll go to bed. Just once. I'm allowed to slip up once, aren't I? _You're supposed to be trying to stop. _I know I'm supposed to be trying to stop, but I think this situation calls for it. I might be carrying a baby inside of me. I think I deserve one little slip up. Just one. I promise, just one. _If you slip up once, then you're just gonna keep slipping and slipping and slipping until you're addicted to it all over again. Don't go upstairs and cut. Find something else to do. _Okay, I won't.

I sit up on my couch-bed and put my feet down on the floor. I side-step the coffee table so I don't run into it in the midst of all the darkness. I feel around until I finally reach the staircase. Everybody in the house is asleep, I think. I'm the only one left awake. I hold onto the railing of the steps and climb them slowly so I don't fall. I reach the top of the steps and walk towards the first door on the right. I twist the doorknob to it and push it open.

"…Shane." I whisper and peek inside his room. He's lying in his bed but the light illuminating from his cell phone lets me know that he's not asleep. "Shane." I call his name again and walk inside once I see that he's awake. I shut his door behind myself and walk over to his bed. He has headphones in his ears, which explains why he was ignoring me. I tap his leg so I don't frighten him.

He takes one of his headphones out of his ear and looks at me. "What?" He's whispering too.

"…Move over." I pull back his covers and start getting into the bed with him. He willingly moves over but I can tell that he's just a little bit annoyed. "I can't sleep. I have that feeling again…"

"What feeling?" He pauses his music and puts his iPod down.

"Like something bad is gonna happen." I pull his covers over myself and sigh. My head topples over onto his shoulder. "Like I want to do it… but I won't." I grab one of his headphones and plug it inside my ear. "What are you listening to?"

"Never Gonna Leave This Bed." He plays his music. "This song reminds me of Leah, you know?"

"That's cute." I roll over on my side so that I'm lying really close to him. The chorus comes up and I sing a little bit with it. "Wake you up in the middle of the night to say I'll never run away again… I'm never gonna leave this bed…" I stare up at his ceiling. "…You think… you think things will always be this bad, Shane?"

"What are you talking about now, J? What's bad?"

"…My little problem." I brush my index finger over my cuts. "You think eventually, it won't be this bad? Because right now, it's all I can think about. Every time I get upset, it's that. You think someday, I won't jump to that? I don't even remember what I used to do when I got upset before I started doing that. I was literally just lying downstairs thinking… and I got upset and that's the first thing my mind went to. I don't want it to be like that all the time."

"…It won't always be that bad. What even made you upset in the first place? What made you think about that?"

"….What happens if I'm pregnant, Shane? Seriously… what happens then? I just keep making all of these mistakes. I'm so stupid. I don't ever think about the results of my actions before I do it. I'm stupid. And now I might be pregnant. That's what I get though, isn't it? For always having unprotected sex. That's what I get."

"…You had sex with Alex?"

"…Yeah. Tonight." I swallow a lump in my throat. "I knew he didn't have a condom and I still did it. I just kind of… wanted to do it before I got scared. I was scared the whole time, though. I thought if I didn't do it while I had the nerve to do it, I wouldn't do it at all. But I was scared the whole entire time. So now I'm kind of regretting it… wishing that I would've waited until we had proper protection. He pulled out and stuff… but still."

"Oh."

"…Oh? Is that all you can say is 'Oh'? I'm freaking out, Shane. I need help… please help me."

"…I don't know what to say, Jo." I hear him swallow really hard. "…I just didn't know it would sting this bad, that's all."

"…What?" _He's talking about you sleeping with Alex, dummy. _"Shane, you and Leah screw each other almost every day. Don't… don't make it seem like… don't do this. Just don't do it."

"…Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I always knew it was gonna happen but I figured I had time. I didn't know it already happened." He sighs. "So uh… when you say you were scared… scared of what?"

"…Listen, Shane." _You need to apologize to him. You didn't have to just drop that bomb on him just like that when you already know how he feels about you. _"I don't want to keep hurting you. You say that I'm not… but I am. I see that I am. And it makes me feel crappy, but I'm sorry. I feel so bad, Shane. But you can't keep holding that against me. You can't… keep using it against me like this. I am SORRY. I am so sorry that this happened to you and not me, but that's just it. That's it, Shane. It happened for YOU but it never happened for me. And I'm sorry that it happened for you. I can't apologize enough, but Shane… sometimes I don't know what I'm even apologizing for. What am I apologizing for, Shane? Am I apologizing because you fell in love with me? How do I apologize for that? I mean, is it my fault that it happened for you but not for me? You keep saying that it doesn't change anything, but it obviously does. I can't keep hurting you. You can keep lying to me and saying that I'm not, but I know you. And I know what you're thinking and that's ONE thing that hasn't changed about us. I still know you and you still know me. You can't keep lying to me about it. I don't know how to fix it… but maybe I can help."

"You can't help me, Jo. You can't. And you're right… I can't keep lying to you." He rolls over on his side too, so that we're facing each other. "It hurts like hell. I thought that telling you about it wouldn't really change anything, and that's my mistake. I really believed that it wouldn't change anything. But you're right again. It hurts like hell now that you know. Like… like I ripped the Band-Aid off the thing that was hurting me the most. It hurts like hell. I guess you don't really know how it feels… but I don't expect you to know. You don't want someone you can't have. You don't know what it means to have something in front of you for a long time… and you can't have it."

"You're right. I don't know what that's like. But I can only imagine what that must feel like." I reach up and grab a piece of fuzz out of his hair. "But you really can't keep using it against me. It's not my fault, Shane. It's not my fault. I can't be blamed for how you feel. I can't be blamed because you took too long to speak up about it."

"Took too long?" He wrinkles his brow at me. "…So if I had said something before you got with Alex and before I got with Leah, you're saying you would've given me a chance? I think you're lying, Jo. I don't think I ever had a chance with you. And if you're lying to me, that's okay. I get that you're trying to make me feel better. But you don't have to lie to me. You don't have to make it seem like I was too late."

"You don't know that, Shane. You don't know if I'm lying about that or not." _It's nice to be able to talk to him about it. Like…really talk to him. No arguing, no fighting, no raising our voices. Just talking about it. _"And maybe that's true. Maybe I wouldn't ever think of you. But at least my decision wouldn't be so concrete if you had said something sooner. I'm not breaking up with Alex. He means too much to me. I really love him, Shane. I love him a lot. And I'm not messing that up for myself. I love him more than I've ever loved anybody in my life. And I can't just throw that away, you know? I'd never forgive myself if I just threw that away for something uncertain. Something that I don't even want."

"You don't even give me a chance, Jo. I could make you happy if you let me. I know you better than he does. I guarantee I love you more than he does. I've loved you longer… I appreciate you more than he does. He doesn't even know how to calm you down when you escalate. I do. Why is it so hard for you to admit that I could…just possibly be better for you than he is. Just possibly…"

"Because, Shane. How could you sit here and tell me that something I don't want… could be better than something I do want? And you do make me happy. You make me very happy. You make me happy every time I see you. You make me laugh, you make me smile. You're always there for me. But as a friend. I never said that you didn't make me happy because you do. You really, really do. You used be my favorite person in the world. But I have a new favorite person now. I'm growing up, Shane. Why is it so hard for you to accept the fact that I have room in my heart for the both of you? I love you and I love Alex. But it's not the same kind of love. It's not the same kind of love…"

"Then what the hell kind of love is it, J? I love you and I love Leah. But love is love. And you're picking him over me. Don't holler about it, because it's true. You choose him over me and it hurts me. It hurts that you've been with him for a month and a half, and you already drop the 'I love him' thing on me. You don't love him, Jo. You're in love with the idea of him. He doesn't know you. He doesn't know what you're thinking, what you're feeling, how you interpret things. He doesn't know your favorite food, favorite color, favorite TV show, favorite animal… anything like that. He doesn't know that. But I do. How are YOU going to sit there and tell me that someone that knows you wouldn't be the better candidate?"

"There you go again, acting like you know me better than I know myself. Shane, I love him. I know you don't believe that I do, but I do. I really, really, really do. And it would mean the world to me if you were happy for me, but I know you can't be. I know you can't be happy for me, so I'm just going to leave it at that. You do know me, Shane. You know me very well. You know me very, very, very well. And I love that about you. I love you for knowing things about me that nobody else does. But a friend can do that. A friend can know things. If you want to play it that way, Leah doesn't know things about you that I know. I don't feel like I should have to convince you that I'm in love with my boyfriend."

"I just don't think you're thinking about anything. I think you can't get past the fact that I'm me. You can't think for one second that I could be everything he is to you? Why are you so against me? You don't think that I could be the one to hold you when you cry? I can't be the one that wipes your tears? I can't be the one that makes sure you're okay? I've been doing it since we were three, what makes now any different? I just don't understand how you can say that it happened for me but it didn't happen for you. WHY didn't it happen for you, J? What am I missing? Because I don't understand how you can be so close with someone for so long… and never once catch feelings."

"I never said that I didn't have feelings for you, Shane. Because I did. I'd be a bold-faced liar if I said that I never wanted to ask you out or wanted you to ask me out." I know what I'm about to do can be misinterpreted by him, but I'm doing it out of pure friendliness. I feel like he needs to know that I'm still here as a friend for him. So I slide my hand over to his and lock my fingers inside his hand. I'm still his friend. And whether it's by holding hands or hugging, he needs to know that I'm not going anywhere. "That was so long ago, though. It was like… back in the fifth grade. I had the biggest crush on you but it was so juvenile and stupid… I grew out of it. And I don't feel that way about you. I really don't. I wish I did, because then things would be so much easier. But I can't pretend I feel some way when I really don't."

"I don't want you to break up with Alex, okay? That's not what I'm asking. I'm not lying here in this bed with you, spilling out all my feelings because I want you to break it off with him. He makes you happy, obviously. And your smile… is something that I've been living for. You smile with him. You genuinely smile, J. And you're happy with him and he makes you happy and you're just… happy. I love that he makes you happy. And I thank him for making you happy. Why would I want you to break that off? Why would I want you to stop being happy? But just know that it hurts, Jo. When he hugs you… when he kisses you… when he makes you smile… it hurts. Because I could do that if you gave me the chance. I could do that. And you wouldn't have to change for me. You wouldn't have to act like someone you're not. You can bum around in basketball shorts and Polo shirts if you want, because that's exactly how I fell for you. I didn't fall for you because you had pretty clothes and a make up on."

"That's very sweet." I look away from him. _Is it bad that none of this is meaning anything to me? None of what he's saying has any meaning to me. But he's really starting to make me fucking think. _"But I'm not different, Shane. I'm not acting like anything to be with Alex. Who I am is who I am. I dress pretty because I'm tired of acting like a boy… not because Alex is making me. I'm not changing, I'm maturing. Alex doesn't make me do anything I don't want to do. He's not like that. I do everything I do because I want to. I didn't do anything I didn't want to do. I had sex with him tonight because I wanted to. It was stupid, but it was something I wanted."

"But that's it, J. It was sex. Just sex…"

"…Yeah, so?"

"I don't know." He sighs. "I don't even know why I have dreams anymore when you just keep crushing them."

"…Are you telling me that you wanted to sleep with me?"

"That's not what I'm saying, Jo. And you know that's not what I'm saying." He reaches his hand out, but pulls it back. I nod at him to let him know that it's okay for him to do whatever he wanted to do with that extended hand. He puts it back out and runs it through my hair. "I'm saying that… things could be perfect if you let them be. We could spend every minute together. You'd never be alone. You're already part of my family, so when we get married, nothing would have to change. It wouldn't be sex with me. It'd be special… not sex. Love."

I close my eyes and drop my jaw. "Whoa, wait a second… WHO said ANYTHING about getting married?! Shane, I'm sixteen! I don't want to marry you!"

"In the future, in the future."

"No… not even then. I don't think… I'm not the marrying type. I don't think I ever want to get married, to anyone… not just you. ANYONE. I don't want to get married… ever. And… that's just… really freaking me out to think about right now, so please… don't do this. Don't ruin this for me. Tonight was perfect. It wasn't just sex with Alex. It was love. Real, actual, lovemaking. It wasn't a quickie, it wasn't a one pump, two pump, squeal. It wasn't like that. It was real. It was special for me. Don't ruin this."

"I'm not trying to ruin anything for you, J. I want you to be happy."

"And I AM happy. I'm happy right now. Be happy for me?"

"Of course I'm happy for you. It sucks for me, but I'm happy for you. I can be happy for you and sad for myself at the same time. Can't I?" He grabs ahold of a chunk of my hair and runs his fingers through it. "I mean, because above everything else, you're my best friend in the entire world. I don't want to lose you. You're the best friend I've ever had and I don't want to lose you. So I'll be happy for you, yet sad for myself."

"…You're a very talented man, Shaney." I tap him on his cheek. "…I think I'm gonna go to bed now. We have to go to school tomorrow still, so we should probably sleep."

"You can sleep in here if you want to."

"…Just don't pull the covers." I giggle and turn my back towards him to get comfortable.

He laughs too. "…I love you, Jo. More than I love you as a girlfriend, I love you as my best friend. And I don't ever want to mess that up."

"I don't want you to mess that up, either."


	41. Do (Or Don't) Tell

**A/N: **There will be **M **rated content in this chapter.

* * *

"Bye mom, I'll see you later." I loop my hand through the handles of my bookbag and open up the car door. Shane jumps out of the truck and slams his door shut behind him. I think he's mad at me. I didn't sleep very well last night, but I still feel all energized and excited to get back inside the school building. I didn't take that sleeping pill last night because I slept with Shane and I was way too lazy to run back downstairs to grab it. Sleeping with Shane last night was really different, by the way. For starters, we both slept at the top of the bed. I didn't sleep at the bottom like I usually do and the two of us shared a pillow. He didn't pull covers off me and he didn't kick me in the butt. I didn't feel the need to sleep on the floor, either. I had a tough time falling asleep, but I was actually comfortable for the most part. I don't think I'll be sleeping with Shane anymore anytime soon, though. Not that I wasn't comfortable, because I was… but I just don't think it was a good idea. I think I might've teased him by sleeping with him and I just don't want to do that.

I did sleep for a couple hours, though. When I woke up, his arms were around my waist and we were spooning. It's not like I've never cuddled with Shane before I knew any of his feelings. In fact, we used to lie on each other all the time. If we were watching a movie, I'd lay on his shoulder. If we were bored and watching TV, he'd lay on my legs. When we were babies, we used to hold hands while we slept. It's just different now, because I can't help but feel like it means something different to him now. It was innocent, really. His arms were around my waist and he was lying on my ponytail since we were sharing a pillow. My legs were all entangled in his and I was comfortable. But I don't think I'll be sleeping with him anymore. I just don't want to be a "tease" when it comes to that.

"Wait, Jo…" Mom grabs onto my arm before I can get out of the car. I sit back inside the car and re-close my door. "I'll be at work until 3:00, but if you need me, I'll keep my cell phone on. Sweetie, if you're not ready to stay here, just call me. I'll come scoop you up on my lunch break if you need me to. Just text me or call me if you need me… okay?" I nod my head slowly and look out the window at everyone that's going inside the school. _It's just school. I'll be fine. It's school. _"Have a nice day, honey."

"See you later." I clutch my bookbag and open up the door again. I sling the bookbag over my shoulder, shut the car door after I get out and start walking towards the entrance. I thought about dressing up for my first day back, but this morning, I just decided against it. So I threw on a pair of skinny jeans and a pink and grey striped sweater. My hair's down and straight and the only makeup I bothered to put on was some eyeliner. I look decent enough, I guess. I walk in through the main doors and get straight in line for the metal detectors. When I look around, I see things in shades of purple instead of shades of green. I really missed it here. Above the auditorium stage is a logo of a bulldog instead of a sea king. _This is home. _I unzip my bookbag and put it on the table so it can be checked.

I nonchalantly walk through the metal detectors and grab my bag on the other side. I put my bag back on my shoulder and walk up the steps that lead into the cafeteria. Shane and I both got here a little later than we usually do if we were to ride the bus. The cafeteria is already packed with people. Because I don't see where Steph, Heather and Leah are at, I just stand by myself beside the water fountains. I don't see any of my senior friends, either. The only person that I talk to that I see right now is Shane, and I don't think he really wants to talk to me. He's mad at me for what I did to him this morning. If you ask me, I think he has himself to be mad at, but that's just me. I don't even think I was that mean to him this morning. I woke up and he was _holding _me. He was already awake, scrolling through his phone. One of his arms was around my waist and he was just looking through his Facebook like it wasn't a big deal or anything. I asked him what he was doing. He said I asked him to hold me. I told him that I didn't ask him to do anything. He said I did ask him, right before we fell asleep. I told him to get off me. He asked why. I told him because he's not my boyfriend. He let me go. He hasn't spoken to me since.

I sigh and shove my hand in my back pocket to grab my phone. It's 7:35. Ten more minutes until the bell rings for first period. I stick my phone back in my pocket and look around again. My eyes inadvertently draw themselves back to Shane. I'm not sure when, but somewhere along the lines of me grabbing my phone and looking at it, Leah found her way to him. _Leah's so pretty. How could Shane possibly think of me over her? She's so pretty and skinny and blonde. She's a really nice person, too. I'm no better than she is. _Shane doesn't look too amused and Leah can see that. I can't hear anything that the two of them are saying to each other, but I can tell that they're arguing in a sense. It's so strange to know that I'm the root of their argument. Shane's in a pissy mood because of what I said to him this morning and he's taking it out on Leah. I sigh and look away from the two of them. In front of my face, Heather and Aaron are walking towards the lockers and talking to each other…holding HANDS. My eyebrows involuntarily raise themselves up and I start smiling. _Go Heather. Looks like she doesn't need me… _Where's Steph? Better yet, where's my boyfriend?

I have a lot to talk to him about. I want to make sure he knows that he didn't do anything wrong last night. He was perfect, IT was perfect and he did nothing wrong. I don't want him to think I'm pissed at him for any unspecified reason. I'm not mad at him. I'm mad at myself, actually. He actually stopped. He actually got off me and started to get dressed when he realized we didn't have protection. It was me that pursued him. How could I be mad at him for that? But most importantly, I want to talk to him about the possibility of me… having a baby. I guess I'd rather tell him about it before it's too late. If it were up to me, I wouldn't tell him about it at all until the kid pops out. But I'm trying to be a good person here and let him know.

Maybe I'm just being a little bit psychotic and crazy, but I'm about 75% sure that I'm carrying his child at the moment. It's kind of hard to describe, but I have a fuzzy feeling in my stomach. It's not something that's making me sick or nauseous or anything. It's just kind of warm. Like I drank a bunch of hot coffee and it's burning in the pit of my stomach. It's fuzzy…pleasant, almost. The only thing that's not making sense to me is the fact that he DID pull out last night. Maybe he didn't pull out in time, but I know that he did for a fact. I don't even want to go into details about where he put it, but just know that I know for a fact that he pulled out. And I swear you can't get pregnant unless a boy… yeah, inside of you. _Unless it's Jason's kid. _

Oh good lord.

**x x x**

"So… you and Aaron? Go girl." I whisper to Heather with a genuine smile on my face. I've drawn the conclusion that yeah, I'm happy. I mean, despite the fact that I'm pregnant right now, despite the fact that I feel like cutting myself so bad right now… I'm happy. For the most part. Being in school has a lot to do with the happiness, I suppose. "When did this happen?" I lean across the desk so she can hear me. I picked a good day to come back to school, I think. It's only first period, but it already seems like a good day. Geography teacher is showing a movie, and I hear that my next period teacher is absent. So while the movie is playing in the background, I can catch up with my girls. "How did it happen?"

"He approached me." Heather is so smiley and giddy and I'm genuinely happy for her. I think Steph is the only single one in the group now, which kind of sucks. We're going to have to set her up with someone. If only Shane's brothers were older… "Apparently Alex told him that you had a friend that was interested. And on Monday, he came over to me at lunch and was just like… hey."

"Oh my gosh. I'm so happy for you." I turn to Steph. "Now all we gotta do is get you a man… which would be easy for you to do if you stopped turning down every boy that's NOT Jackson Avery. You need to stop drooling over him, Steph." Leah's cheeks turn bright red as soon as I say that. Heather looks away from me. Steph… Steph starts smiling and looking down at the ground. I'm out of the loop with something… "…What are you guys not telling me?" I squint my eyes at them. "Oh come on! Tell me! You guys don't tell me anything anymore. I'm always left in the dark, but you guys always expect me to tell you everything about my life. Come on… what am I missing?"

Heather just laughs and so does Leah. Steph stops smiling and just looks at me. "You're too much of a liability, Jo. We can't tell you. You're liable for anything that comes out of my mouth."

"…Who am I really gonna snitch to? I'm not gonna tell anybody. You guys are my only friends. You guys, Shane and Alex are all I even interact with. Come on… you guys can't just leave me in the dark about everything."

"You're friends with too many people, Jo." Leah chimes in. "Like, if we told you about it, you'd feel obligated to tell one of the friends you're missing. We can't tell you."

"Yes you guys can tell me! I know how to keep secrets." _They don't know that you had sex with Alex yet… _"Matter of a fact, I have a secret of my own to tell you guys about. But I won't tell you unless you tell me." _Oh yeah, you have to tell them that you're pregnant too. _"Actually, I have TWO secrets…"

Heather leans across the desk and looks me dead in my eyes. "YOU. CANNOT. TELL. APRIL." She puts her hands on my cheeks and squeezes my face. "Seriously, Jo. We know April is your friend and we know that this is breaking the girl code. Because if it were one of us… you would HAVE to tell us about it. But you CAN'T tell April. You can't even act like you know something. You have to promise that you'll act normal around April."

"And just remember that we didn't even want to tell you. We all agreed that we wouldn't tell you, because this is putting you in an incredibly fucked up position. You're friends with us, and you're friends with April. We didn't want to put you in this kind of position… so if we tell you, you have to SWEAR you won't say anything to April… Meredith, Cristina… ANY of them. You can't even pretend like you know something." Leah's tone is very serious and Steph is still just smiling.

"…Steph, don't tell me you slept with Jackson…" I scoot my chair back so I can look at her dead on. "Stephanie… Stephanie…."

"…It just happened!" Steph busts out in excited laughter and puts her head down on the desk.

"WHAT?!" I grab a handful of her curly black hair and pull her head up. "Stephanie! HOW?! Wh…WHEN?! WHERE AT?! OH MY GOD." I clamp my hand over my mouth. _Jackson cheated on April? Oh my god… _"When did this even happen?!"

"...Saturday night. Like… a couple hours after we left your house. After you fought Lucy. My sister had this party. Well, it wasn't really a party as much as it was just a get together. There was like twenty people there, so I guess you could call it a party… I don't know. But there was drinking and stuff. He was drunk, but not really. Like… he still knew what he was doing and stuff. He knew who I was and what he was doing, so I guess you could say he was tipsy. I was just a little bit drunk too. Just a little bit drunk. And one thing led to another and we did it."

My eye twitches. "…Are you bullshitting me?"

"No! I'm so serious. Him and my sister are cool with each other, so he was invited. It was just him, though. April wasn't there… nobody else that he hangs out with was there. It was just him and a couple of my sister's college friends. We were talking for like… an hour and then we went upstairs and… yep."

"…Steph!"

"Jo, I know. I KNOW. Trust me, I know." She just keeps smiling at me. "…But it was so good. It was the greatest experience of my life, I shit you not. It was SO good. You don't understand… I think I went cross-eyed."

"…Oh my god. I need a minute." I put my head down on the desk and take a breather. _Jackson cheated on April! They were right… this is a really fucked up position for me. I kind of feel like I should let April know, because she clearly doesn't. She clearly doesn't know. But if I tell her, I broke a promise to my best friends. I'm not gonna tell. But still… that's wild. _"How did you contain yourself? You were crushing on him for like… ever. And then you finally screwed him… how did you contain yourself?"

"I'm still trying to figure that one out, Jo."

Heather leans towards me. "Okay, your turn. You said you had a secret…"

"…I need a second. I mean… my secret doesn't compare to that in any way, shape or form. That's so crazy… I didn't think you had it in you, Steph." I shake my head at her. "I really didn't think you had it in you. I'm… I'm shocked. Shocked in a good way, obviously. But shocked… none the less." I fan myself because that actually made me sweat. "All I did was have sex with Alex… that doesn't compare to anything you just said…"

"NO!" Leah actually stands up and yells at me. "I knew it! I fucking knew it!" I shush her and pull her by her sleeve back into the chair she sprang up out of. "I knew it! I knew it! It was last night, wasn't it!? It was last night! You came upstairs with your hair all fucked up… I knew it! You had the look… the 'I just god laid' look. I knew it!"

"You can tell?" My cheeks are bright red. "Seriously? You can really tell that we did it?"

"…I could! You came upstairs to my room after it happened! You were stuttering and shit. In case you didn't know, your face is very expressive, Jo. You're not that hard to read. Your hair was all over the place and your makeup was all messy. And you were walking like you just got your cakes smashed… I could totally tell."

"…Shut up." I put my face in my hands and smile. "Was I really walking funny?"

"Yeah, you were. It wasn't really noticeable, but I could so tell. Too many signs pointed to it. You were like… stuttering and your hair and makeup… and you were walking like your leg hurt. Does your leg hurt?"

I just nod.

"…Oh my god, was it like… super-duper rough and nasty?" Steph presses me for details.

"Not really…."

"Then why does your leg hurt?" Heather takes her turn to press me.

"…He…." I look up at the ceiling and can't help but smile at last night's memory. "…He put my legs… in places….. I didn't even know my legs could go." I shiver at the thought. "I didn't even know I could bend that way. It wasn't rough… it was crazy. …How…" My eye twitches again. "How do you start on the couch… wind up on the floor… but end up back on the couch? ….All in 45 minutes. I had to stop myself a couple times. I was like… 'Wow'. My leg… both my legs, actually… are sore. I think I pulled a muscle or two… I don't know. It was crazy. I just… never knew I was that flexible."

Leah's smiling so wide. "You're so dirty."

"…I am. I'm a dirty, dirty whore. Cause I loved it." I sit back in my chair and poke my lip out. "…I like… didn't want it to be over."

Steph scoots closer to me. "So can we have details? What was it like exactly? Is he as good in bed as everyone says he is? How did it start? Does he start out dirty and rough or does he like… ease into it?"

_Just go ahead and talk to them about it. You know you want to. You know you're dying to tell somebody about it. You couldn't tell Shane about it… tell them. You're dying to. _"Okay, well… we were just kissing at first. And then… um… hold on." I close my eyes for a second. "He started taking my clothes off and he was just kissing me all over the place and stuff. Then he went down on me and then—"

"Did you scream?" Heather sticks her neck out and questions me. "Tell me you screamed."

"No, I didn't scream. But I wanted to. I didn't scream then. I basically just… let him do whatever he wanted to do. Then we did it. After he did everything he wanted to do with his mouth, we did it. At first he was on top… but then it got boring because…. I think he was afraid to hurt me. So he was going all slow and boring and stuff. So I like… I don't know… I made him let me be on top. It was boring on bottom so I wanted to be on top. So I made him—"

"You rode him?" Steph's jaw drops.

I blush and cringe at that. "Y…Yes, okay?" I bite my bottom lip and continue. "So yes, I was on top. And I liked it on top…. I've never been on top before but I feel like I was doing good for it being my first time. I mean… it was good, I think. He scratched the hell out of me… so it must've been good, right?" I scoot down in my chair a little and unbutton my jeans a little, since we're sitting in the back of the room and the lights are out for the movie. "Scratches are a good thing, right?" I pull my jeans down just a tad bit and lift up my sweater for them. "Look at my hips…" I show them the little marks and shallow scratches Alex left on me.

Leah leans down to get a closer look. "…Damn. Yeah, you must've been riding the hell outta him."

I button my jeans back up and put my shirt down. "I don't know… so I guess it was good while I was on top. But he made me get off… he said something about… I was gonna make him… you know…" I look away from them and blush a little bit.

"Bust?" Heather chimes in for the word that I wasn't gonna say.

"Yeah… that." I put my hands on my cheeks to try and make them a little less red. "He said I was gonna make him do that early… if I stayed on top. So he made me get off. And I don't know… somehow we ended up on the floor and my freaking leg ended up on his shoulder… And I fucked his back… UP. Like… he has really bad scratches on his back. And I bit his shoulder. When he…" I clear my throat and sit up so I can explain this next part to them. "We did it standing up, okay?" I watch as all three of their mouths drop. "It was like… for two seconds, because it got really uncomfortable. But he was like… holding me up while he was standing. And he was just… doing it while we were standing up and I was gonna scream… so I bit his shoulder. I don't think I broke skin, but I bit pretty hard." I close my eyes again. "Then from the standing up thing, it was back to the couch. But not… on the couch, you know? Like… over the couch, kind of…"

"He bent you over the couch?!" Steph's eyes are so big.

"I told you it was nuts!" I throw my head back and laugh so hard. "It was A LOT. And you know Leah's basement… you know it's not that big. And that couch down there isn't that big either. It's not that high. But he found a way… and he bent me over it. And my leg… my leg…" I shake my head. "How does a leg bend that way? The whole time I'm sitting there listening to the shower running upstairs on the main floor… because Leah and Shane were in the shower. And I'm like… we gotta stop before the shower stops… because I wasn't trying to get busted up."

Leah shakes her head. "Oh, me and Shane were in our own little world upstairs. We couldn't care less what you two were doing down there. But now that I'm hearing about it, I think we should've put a camera down there. It sounds like you two made a freaking porno."

"…Girl, I felt like I was in a porno." I put my hand on my forehead. "The whole time, I'm sitting here thinking…. This is crazy. This is so crazy. And…" I sigh. "Do you know what it is with boys and HAIR PULLING? Why do they always gotta pull the hair?! I don't like my fucking hair pulled. Don't pull my hair. I get that it's tempting, because I have a lot of it… but please don't pull the hair. That pisses me off. He kept pulling my hair!" I tilt my head back. "…Like the smacking? The ass-slapping? That doesn't bother me. He can slap my ass all he wants, I don't care. But don't pull my hair."

"Tell him how you feel about that. Jackson didn't even touch my hair, because I told him not to. I'm not into that kinky stuff. You gotta tell him about it." Steph nudges me.

"I thought I was! I like… wasn't gonna tell him straight up, because we were in the middle of something, obviously. But when he would stop pulling it, I would reach up and move it away. But he would just grab it again. I was like… dude. Stop. He wasn't hurting me or anything. He wasn't like… trying to rip my hair out or anything like that. He would just like… wrap his hands up in it and pull it just a little. I hated it."

"…Where did you put the condom at? Because I was totally looking for it. I wanted to change the garbage bag you put it in so my mom didn't see it, but I couldn't find it so I just thought you guys didn't even do it. I just thought maybe you gave him head and that was that. I couldn't find the condom to save my life." Leah tucks her hair behind her ear and asks me.

I just look at the three of them with an off-kilted smile.

"…You didn't use one!?" Leah's eyes are soooo wide.

"JO, ARE YOU SERIOUS?! YOU DID IT RAW?!" Steph's jaw is wide open.

"You're ballsy!" Heather nods.

"Look… he already went down on me and I was in the MOOD, okay? I was like… this is happening right now, I don't give a shit. I wanted it so bad. I had to. It sounded like a good idea at the time. Like… I just… I don't know. He tried to stop it. He didn't want to do it without a condom but I was just like 'I don't give a shit, you can pull out.' And he did. I know, it was stupid… but I really needed it. I REALLY needed it. And it was worth it. It was great…"

Leah slaps me on my arm rather hard. "You could've easily walked your ass up the steps and asked me or Shane for one. I always have extras. Dummy."

"I know…" _If I would've asked either one of them for a condom, Shane would've known what I intended to do with Alex last night and he probably would've been pissed and he probably wouldn't have even had sex with Leah. He would've been too pissed and preoccupied with the fact that I was downstairs screwing Alex. _"I'm weak. I'm weak and I'm a dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty whore. But you guys don't understand how much I needed that last night… I NEEDED it."

"Was it worth it?" Steph asks.

"Mhm."

"Did you… you know… have an… O?"

"…Yep." I nod. "A BIG one, too. It was huge." I'm so ashamed of myself. I'm so dirty. "Legs were shaking… throat hurt from screaming… it was huge. And it was great. And I'm such a whore." I poke my lip out again. "Alex thought the whole thing was cute. He was like… watching. Like he was proud of himself or something. But it was so mind-blowing and freaking… earth-shattering that I couldn't even get mad at him. He was like…" I close my eyes again. "He was on top. We were back on the couch at that point. And he was on top. And I pulled him down on top of me specifically because I didn't want him to see my face. I felt it coming on and I didn't want him to see my face for that. So I like… pulled him down on top of me and put my face in his neck and started screaming. He thought it was funny or something. He pulled away and watched… I wanted to kill him. But my legs were shaking and I was just… on cloud nine so I couldn't kill him."

Heather looks like she has a question for me. "…So he pulled out?"

"Mhm." I nod.

"…Where did he put it?"

"Put what?"

"You know what…"

"Oh god…" I put my hands over my face. "Do I have to answer? I feel like you guys are gonna judge me." I take my hands away. "Don't judge me… don't judge me, okay? It was like…" I bite my lip. This is so embarrassing. "He was still on top. It happened after I had mine. So he was still on top and I like… I knew he was going to, because he started slowing down a little bit and he… he told me, you know? He was like… 'I'm gonna…' and I was like… 'pull out'. I didn't want him to. I wanted him to keep going so bad, but I kept yelling at him to pull out before he did. And he did. But he waited. He waited until like… RIGHT BEFORE it happened to pull out. So he pulled out, but it went… like…" I bite my lip again. "Like… right here." I motion to my lower stomach.

"Oh you're disgusting." Steph shakes her head. "You let him bust on you?! You're gross…"

"Stop! I knew you were gonna judge me. Stop judging me!"

"You're nasty… You're gross."

"Better ON me than IN me!" I cross my legs and cover my face with my hands. "He wiped it off! He had an undershirt on underneath his t-shirt and he wiped it off with that. He was nice about it!"

"…Was it all sticky and gross?" Heather's nose turns up.

"…I'm not answering that."

Leah shakes her head. "I knew that innocent thing was just an act. I knew you were a little freak. I knew it. You little hoe." She looks at me with a playful, disgusted smile. "You're gross. You're a hoe. I thought I was bad…"

"…Shut up." I put my head down on the desk. "…So now I'm freaking out because I think I'm pregnant. Don't like… make fun of me or anything, okay? Just hear me out. My period's supposed to be here like… tomorrow. Before the end of the week, I mean. Like it's supposed to BE HERE. I'm not late or anything, but I just did it… right before my period. Aren't girls like… super fertile before their periods? I'm probably pregnant now. All because I'm a whore that couldn't wait."

Steph starts laughing her ASS off. "You're not pregnant, Jo. If he didn't bust inside you, you can't be pregnant. And plus, you can't get pregnant right before your period. You have to have sex like… two weeks before your period, not the day before or two days before. You're not that stupid, are you?"

"Look, I'm not the luckiest person. Knowing me, I am pregnant. Because that's just how things work out for me. I wouldn't be surprised…" I shrug my shoulders.

"You're not pregnant. Trust me, you're not. Just wait and see. You're not preggers. Just stop having unprotected sex… simple as that."

"I know, okay? It was a one-time thing." I look over at Heather, who's just shaking her head at me. "…What's your issue?"

"Me?" She asks.

"Yeah, you. Heather. What's your problem?"

She cracks a nervous smile. "I'm just trying to decide who's luckier out of the two of you. I was starting to think that you were the lucky one for getting to sleep with Alex Karev… hottest senior ever, plus best senior in bed. I thought you were lucky. But I don't know… I think Alex is pretty lucky to have gotten in your pants."

"I second that notion." Steph raises her hand.

"I third it." Leah agrees.

"What are you guys talking about?" I squint my eyes at them.

"I think Alex is the lucky one." Steph nods her head. "I'd pay more money to sleep with Jo than to sleep with him. No shame."

"That's only because you already got your wish by sleeping with Jackson." I rebuke her.

"…Maybe you're right about that." She winks her eye at me.

* * *

"I have to admit… it was a little bit boring around here without you, Jo." April flings her lush, fiery red hair over her shoulder and gives me a hug. As much as it pains me, I hug her back. I feel so bad knowing what I know, and not being able to tell her. I feel horrible. But I think keeping a promise to my best friends is a little bit more important than telling my regular friend that her boyfriend's been cheating on her. Now that I think about it, I wish they wouldn't have told me. I really wish they wouldn't have told me that Steph slept with Jackson. They were right. It is a really tough situation to put me in. I really do like April and all. And she's so sweet… "I think I missed you just a little bit more than Alex missed you."

"I missed you guys too." I wipe my hands on my jeans and glance across the table at Meredith and Cristina. They're smiling at me… like they know something I don't know. I can assume what they know, but I might be wrong. Though by the looks of the smiles, I don't think I'm wrong. I smooth my hair back with my hand and scoot towards Alex a little bit. I know exactly what their looks mean, because Jackson's giving me the same look. _Everyone at this table has had sex at some point. Everyone over here has done something sexual. So I might as well just milk it. _I lean against Alex's shoulder and look up at him. "…How's your back?"

He shoves a French fry into his mouth and smiles through the fact that he's chewing. "How's your hips?"

"…Healing." I wink at him. I sit up straight, cross my legs and clear my throat. "So um… I actually have something I want to talk to you about. I feel like we probably should've talked about it before we did what we did, but better late than never, I guess…. and it's kind of impo—"

"Why's Ross giving you the death stare?" He interrupts me which kind of pisses me off. What I have to talk to him about is just a little bit more important than Shane looking at me like he wants to kill me. He's been giving me that look all morning. He's just pissed off. "What's his problem?"

"He's just pissed at me for something I said to him this morning. I told him off… but listen…" I try to direct his attention back to the original conversation, but his eyes are locked across the cafeteria at Shane. I sigh and turn my head to see what he means. Shane's sitting beside Leah, staring at me like he literally wants to shoot me with a sniper rifle. I know what he's doing. He's trying to make sure that I KNOW he's mad at me. He's going to keep looking at me like this until I acknowledge the fact that he's pissed. _You know what? He's starting to make me angry. It's not my fucking fault that he loves me. And if he doesn't stop acting like a toddler about it in school, Leah's gonna find out. And Leah's my friend… my BEST friend. I don't want to lose her over bullshit like this. _"Alex, listen to me." I demand from him. "Seriously… forget about Shane. It's just Shane. I'll deal with him later…"

"…No, he's really looking at you like you pissed in his Cheerios. What's his problem? What'd you say to him?" He's still looking at Shane, which makes me roll my eyes.

"It doesn't fucking matter. LOOK AT ME." _I really hate to do this to Shane. I'm going to hear his mouth about it when we get home, but at this point, I don't care. Obviously telling him I LOVE ALEX isn't doing anything for him. I hate to do this, but I have to. He'll get over it. _I stand up and put my legs on either side of Alex and sit on his lap. "…Alex. Listen to me." I grab his jaw and hold his head still. I kiss him deep, with a whole lot of tongue… like I mean it. I know I just royally pissed Shane off, but he's just another name added to the list of people I pissed off lately. "Listen to me, baby… okay?" _Did you just call him "baby"? _It slipped out. It seemed natural to call him that, though.

"I'm listening…" He puts his hands on my waist and gives me his full, undivided attention.

"…What happens if…" _…Ew. I feel… funny. I feel really weird. Ew… Power through it. It's probably the baby talking. _"…Okay, in all seriousness… what if I'm pregnant? Then what?" I whisper in his ear because I don't want to alarm anybody else at the table. "I'm… I'm probably not…. I might be, though. And what if I am?"

The look on his face says it all. It's sullen and blank. His eyes are glazed over and he has no expression. "…U…m… U….uh…. I… I gu…guess…" He runs his hand through his hair. "Where is this coming from?"

"…I'm not late or anything like that. But it's supposed to be here soon. And I'm kinda freaking out… like what if it just doesn't come?"

"….Um… t…th…then I… I mean, I guess…" He sighs…hard. "I guess I'd better get a job." He shrugs his shoulders. "And maybe put off college for a year… I don't… I don't know. I never really thought about that."

"You wouldn't walk out or anything? And you wouldn't be mad if I… didn't want it?"

"Um…" He runs his hand through his hair again. "…But what if I wanted it? Then what?"

"…We can't have a baby." I whisper to him. "We're way too young to be parents. You're crazy… I wouldn't want a baby. I would love it, sure… but I'm not keeping it. I don't want a baby. Somebody else can have it."

"…You really wouldn't want a baby? _Our _baby? But it's like… me… and you. It's both of us… and you wouldn't want it?"

"…No?"

"And if I wanted it?" He looks at me through hooded eyes. "I guess I'm just shit outta luck if I want it, right? Because you don't want it… it means I can't have it?"

"Um… I DON'T want a baby. Not with you, not with anybody… not right now… probably not ever. I'm not the mothering type, if you haven't noticed…"

"You could learn. I just find it hard to believe that you'd throw it to the wolves. You had a crappy mother and I had a crappy dad. You wouldn't just throw it to the wolves and be like your mother. Just like I wouldn't let you throw it to the wolves and be like my father. But you really wouldn't want it?"

"…Alex, I don't want a baby. If I'm pregnant…. I'm not gonna kill it, because I'm against that. But you don't understand how badly I DON'T want a baby. I'm not saying that I wouldn't love it, because I would. It… it might not exist and I already love it. But I don't want it. I don't want it… I won't EVER want it and I'm not keeping it. If you want it… I'm sorry, but oh well? It's like you want me to be pregnant… you're sick."

"I don't want you to be pregnant, are you crazy? I don't want that… But if you are, that's my kid…"

"I'm just gonna wait it out." I sigh. "If I don't get my period by…. Saturday, then we can panic. It's Wednesday. If I don't get it by Saturday, then we can have this argument about what to do with it."

"…Okay." He kisses my cheek. "Love you, still."

* * *

**A/N: **Two questions I would like for you guys to answer:

**1. **If you were Jo, would you tell April about Stephanie and Jackson? Or would you keep the promise to your friends and not tell her?

**2. **I already have my mind made up about Jo being pregnant or not. I've already decided whether or not she's pregnant, so that's all taken care of. But I really want to know how you guys feel about it. I know some of you guys are all for it, and I know some of you guys are really against it lol. I already have my mind made up about it like I said, and I highly doubt I'll be changing it. I just want to know what you guys think.

Answer the questions in reviews! :)


	42. Loyalty

"…I actually have a lot I want to ask you about today… if you don't mind." I pick up a yellow marker and color in a yellow circle. I feel like I'm in kindergarten. It's not necessarily a bad feeling, though. "Is it like… in the rules that you have to ask all the questions?" I draw some yellow lines coming out from the circle and put the cap back on the marker. "No offense, but I kind of thought the whole purpose of this thing is to let me get some things off my chest…" I pick up a brown marker and draw two lines for the trunk of a tree. "You ask a lot of questions…"

"There are no rules here about what you can and cannot talk to me about, Jo. Everything you talk with me about will not leave this room… unless you're talking about harming yourself or others, then I'm required to tell someone about it. But whatever you want to talk about is fair game." She scoots a basket of candy over to me. I put the brown marker down and rummage through it for a package of Smarties. "I do have a couple questions I want to ask you before you ask me your questions, though." She grabs a mini Twix bar and opens it up. "You said yourself that you consider me one of your friends. So why don't you tell me about yourself? If we're friends, I mean…"

"…I'm not very interesting." I open up the Smarties and pop two or three in my mouth at once. "It depends on what you want to know. I'm not… much to gawk at… you know?" I chew the Smarties and pick up a grey marker to draw clouds on my paper. "It isn't much fair for you to hold the fact that we're friends against me, though. I don't have a choice but to be your friend, you know? You're supposed to be shrinking me… I have to be your friend."

"That's not true. You don't have to like me. You could continue to treat me the way you were treating me before. When you were being passive aggressive and smart-mouthed towards me, I mean. You don't have to like me. You choose to be my friend." She breaks off a piece of her Twix bar and chews on it. "Tell me about yourself. I know that 'Jo' is short for 'Josephine', but that's it. When's your birthday? What's your favorite color? What are some positive things about yourself? What are some things you wish you could change? Do you have a favorite movie? A favorite food?"

"…Um…" I put down the grey marker and pop two more Smarties in my mouth. "Well, 'Jo' is short for 'Josephine'. I don't like being called by my full name…ever. Unless I'm in trouble. Josephine is only my name if I'm in trouble. My birthday is September 7th. I don't have a favorite color… though I tend to gravitate towards things that are yellow, so maybe yellow is my favorite color. I don't know. ….I don't have very many positive traits, I don't think. I… I care about people's feelings. I care if I'm making other people upset with me… so maybe that's a positive." I grab two more Smarties from the pack. "Things I want to change? Everything. I wish I wasn't such a raging bitch. I wish little things didn't set me off. I wish I was just a little bit taller and thinner. I wish I had blonde hair. I wish I was good at something. I wish I didn't screw everything up. I wish I was born in the summertime, actually. I wish…. I wish everybody would stop thinking I'm pretty." I sigh. "…And my favorite movie is The Hangover… just part one. I don't like part two. And maybe The Princess Diaries… that's a good one too. And I'm kind of obsessed with cookie dough Pop-Tarts."

"Does it bother you when people think you're pretty?" She notices tears welling up in my eyes so she hands me tissues. I nod my head and take the tissues from her. "Why does it bother you when people think you're pretty? You are very pretty, Jo. You're pretty in your own way. You know what I think?" I sniff and look directly at her. "I think some people try to downplay the way they look… specifically because they don't want to seem conceited. And I think you're one of those people. But you know… there's a difference between confidence and cockiness. It's okay to know that you're a beautiful girl. It's okay to know that."

I sniff again. "But how do you look in the mirror and just… love what's staring back at you? Everybody thinks I'm pretty. Everybody thinks I should be a model, in the magazines, on posters, on TV. My friends think I'm perfect. They think I'm… _perfect. _I have like… curves. I have curves, a big butt and big boobs… they say. But I don't see it. I've been called everything in the book… pretty, sexy, hot, beautiful… but I don't think anybody actually means it when they say it to me. I just hate it. When I look in the mirror, all I see is a plain Jane. Brown hair, hazel eyes, chubbier than most girls my age… with a really bad temper. I don't think I'm pretty."

"Do you think you're ugly?"

"…No. I just don't think I'm exceptionally pretty or anything like that. And then…" I wipe my nose with the wad of tissues she gave me. "I think… okay, maybe I am pretty. Maybe I am hot… maybe I am…sexy. But that doesn't get me anywhere. So far, all that's gotten me is…" I sigh. "I just don't know. As if being pretty is all it's cracked up to be…"

"So you're thinking that… because you're a beautiful little girl, that attracts bad attention?"

"I don't think that. I KNOW that. You know, it's like… okay. I'm not ugly. I have a… nice body or whatever. But what would happen if I were fat and disgusting? What if I was skinny with the body of a five year old? I wouldn't get the attention I get… I could've saved myself a lot of… trouble, you know? I don't really… want to change anything major about the way I look. I just wish I could change the way people perceive me. I wish people didn't think I was so… pretty."

"You think if you were considered ugly… Jason wouldn't have attacked you?"

I shrug. "I dunno… maybe." I bite my bottom lip. "I'm just saying that I don't help the situation much, I don't think. I kind of just… wish I knew what was so special about me? Someone risked going to jail just to sleep with me… I'm not that special…"

"You're thinking about this all wrong, honey. Jo, none of this is your fault. You gotta stop blaming yourself for things you had no control over. It's not like that AT ALL. He didn't risk going to jail just to sleep with you… he was a coward about it. It was a cowardly thing for him to do, and if you don't stop thinking of it as manners of … your fault, vs. his fault… you're never gonna get better. I want you to look at me." I lift my head up and look at her like she asked. "You didn't ask him to attack you. You didn't ask for it. You didn't want it. So you can't be blamed. No matter what you're thinking… you didn't want it."

"I know. I just…" _She said she doesn't judge you and she keeps everything you say confidential. Talk to her… _"I thought I was over it, you know? I thought I put it behind me, and I thought for sure that if I… had sex with my boyfriend, I would feel better about it. I thought by sealing the deal with my boyfriend, that would make it… you know… easier to forget about it. I could put it behind me if Jason wasn't still the last person I had sex with. But it didn't. It made me feel… worse."

"So you and your boyfriend… Alex is his name, isn't it?" I nod at her. "So you and Alex have taken your relationship to another level, and it's become sexual? When did this happen?"

"…Last night."

"And you said you feel worse after the sex? What made you feel worse about it? Was he rough about it?" She takes the soiled tissues out of my hand and throws them away. "I know sometimes, us women have a hard time… articulating to our significant others. Men think that harder is better and it's not always true. So was that… a turning point for you?"

"No, it wasn't that." I run my hand through my hair. "…I liked it, actually. I liked it a lot. And I'm open to do it again, of course. I want to do it again and it wasn't painful or anything of that nature. He was gentle and very understanding. I thought it was going to make me feel one way… but it ended up making me feel another. We enjoyed ourselves during. And I was expecting for the aftermath to make me feel… I don't know… whole? But afterwards, I felt… off. Like maybe I jumped right into a sexual relationship way too soon. I just keep making bad decisions. I think about my decisions before I make them…. but I always end up making the wrong one. It's just… a cycle. And it's all scary, because I think I'm in love. I think I really, really, really love him. But it just… it hurts, you know? And now, I think I'm pregnant and I have to figure out how to love him and a baby and Shane and… I'm just juggling. This is too much…" I put my face in my hands and sink down in my chair. My hands are soaking wet from the tears that are coming out of my eyes.

"Wow, okay… Jo." I hear her scoot her chair out and her footsteps near me. I don't think she's really supposed to touch me. I think it's against the policy for her touch me or whatever, but she does. She puts her arms around me and forces my head into her chest. "You gotta stop doing this to me, okay? When you… when you get upset, you gotta control yourself. Stop doing this to me. You bottle everything up inside and when you finally explode, you give me this big pile of issues to sort though. You gotta stop doing this to me." She uses her hands to wipe my tears away. She's rubbing my back. "That's one thing I learned about you. You bottle up and bottle up and bottle up… then you explode. And you give me a bunch of issues to sort through." She starts stroking my hair. "Let's start from the top. You said you think you're pregnant? Why do you think you're pregnant, honey?"

"….B…because. Because, my p…period is supposed to be here sometime this week and we had sex… and we didn't have a condom, but he pulled out and he didn't… you know… he didn't do that inside me. He pulled out…. But I'm freaking out because I feel… I feel like I am. My luck is so bad… I have really, really shitty luck, so I probably am. And then I'm freaking out… because okay, maybe I'm not pregnant to Alex… but what if I am to Jason? Then what do I do?"

"…Listen to me." She wipes my tears again. "You're not pregnant, sweetheart. You're not pregnant to Alex… you're not pregnant to Jason. Did they draw your blood when you went to the doctors last week? And they checked you for pregnancy, didn't they?"

"…Yeah, but it might've been too early to tell... I… I feel it. It's weird…like fuzziness in the pit of my stomach. I just… I feel it. It sounds weird, but I do. I feel it…"

"You're not pregnant. At those doctor's offices, they check you for everything. They took your blood, honey. A blood test is gonna tell if you're pregnant or not. And if the tests came back negative like you said they did, you're not carrying a baby. And the fact that your period is supposed to be here is just more of a reason for me to know. You can't get pregnant when your period is supposed to be here in days, honey. Sweetie, you're not pregnant. It's next to impossible for you to be pregnant. A blood test wouldn't have missed something like that."

"You really don't think I am? Because I've been trying to convince myself that I'm not, and I'm failing…"

"I know you're not pregnant, sweetie. I know you're not. Trust me on this."

I sniff and wipe my face off. "…Okay. So maybe I'm not. But this is still just too much. I'm one kid, you know? I don't know how much more I can take… I just… I feel like I'm gonna burst. I feel like I'm just acting. I'm acting like I'm fine with everything but I'm just one kid… I'm ONE kid. I'm sixteen year old kid… I don't feel sixteen anymore though. I feel so much older than what I am. I'm one kid. I don't even… I don't know. How is it that I can feel… I can feel like I'm so much older than what I am, but I feel like I'm too young for a lot of things?"

"Feel like you're too young for things like what, Jo?"

"I feel like I'm too young to know some of the things I know. I'm too young to know how much it costs to bury someone. I'm too young to have to worry about where I'm going to lie my head at night, like I did when I ran away. I'm too young to worry about how I'm going to pay my fines. No sixteen-year old should know what first degree rape is, second degree rape, third degree rape. No sixteen-year old should have to think about what it means to plead guilty to a misdemeanor. I shouldn't know these things. I'm too little for things things. I'm way too young to be choosing between two guys that are going to end up fighting over me."

"How about sex, Jo? You don't think you're too little to be having unprotected sex?"

"…Not really." I shrug my shoulders and shake my head. "I mean, maybe sixteen is too young to be in sexual relationships with boys, but I don't feel like it's too young for me. I've… I've been around sex for a long time. I kind of know… I know what to expect and what happens and I know when to stop if I can't handle something. …And nobody's ever going to touch me… or grab me the way Jason did ever again. Nobody's ever going to do that again, so… whatever."

"How do you know nobody's ever going to touch you like that again? How can you be so sure?"

I look at her, dead in her eyes. "Nobody… is EVER going to grab me like that again. Okay?" I close my eyes and rub my temple. "I don't think I'm too young for sex. I think I'm mature enough to handle things like that. I've been around sex for a…really long time."

"What do you mean by that?"

I glance over at the candy basket and grab another package of Smarties. "…Did you know that Shane likes me? Or…loves me, rather." I shove the entire package of Smarties in my mouth and chew while they sting my cheeks from the sourness. "He just admitted to it a couple days ago. He told me he loves me. He has a big, big crush on me. Always has." I continue chewing my candy.

"You're deflecting again, Jo. Don't deflect my question."

"I'M. NOT." I get rather smart with her and decide against maintaining my sass. I swallow all the candy in my mouth and tap my fingers along the table. "When you were like… nine or ten, eleven maybe, were you ever… curious? I mean like… after your mom had 'the talk' with you or whatever. Didn't you ever like… get curious about it? Obviously 'the talk' isn't the first time you've heard about sex… especially if you went to public school, like Garfield. You knew about sex at a young age, huh? But when you get your period and you get the whole sex talk… you start thinking about it. And you get curious. That's normal, isn't it?"

"Precisely. Children as young as five have been known to experiment with their parts. It's not unusual for children to be curious about how things work. And it's understandable that once you learn about it, you want to know more about it…"

"Exactly." I nod my head and pick up a pink marker so I can start drawing birds. I've never seen pink birds before, but I like to think of myself as living in Dr. Seuss's world at the moment. "…So anyway, Shane has a crush on me. You know… Shane? The one that's been like my brother for as long as I can remember? He says he always thought I was pretty. He always thought me and him would get married and have babies together… because you always marry your best friend." I roll my eyes at even thinking about it. I color in a bird's foot and tap the cap of the marker on the table. "So you know, learning all these things about Shane always kind of liking me… it makes things make sense… you know? And it makes me question everything that's ever happened between us. Like… was that kiss he gave me back in seventh grade innocent? Or was it something he'd been dying to do? Or the kiss a month ago… he swore it didn't mean anything. But I guess it did, right? …Or back when we were little… LITTLE things. I was like… eleven. He must've been twelve. I got my period when I was eleven. I don't know if I ever told you that… but I did. I got it when I was eleven and in the fourth grade. I was the first one out of everybody to get it. Not many eleven year olds carried purses with their pads in them. So it was like… everybody knew I got mine. I was the first one." I nod my head. "I was the first one in a training bra, too. I developed a lot quicker than most girls my age."

"I can imagine." For the first time in this session, she starts writing things down. "Where's this story going though, Jo? I asked about the comment you made about being around sex for a long time…"

I hold my hand up at her to shut her up. "I was a fresh eleven, too. I had JUST turned eleven when I got it for the first time. And Shane's mom was the one to give me the talk… my gram just didn't have it in her." I giggle at that. "Yeah, so Shane's mom gave me the talk. And for that whole week, I was just… angry. Angry at boys because nothing happened to them. So being that my best friend was a boy, I like… I punched Shane in his balls like twice during that first week. But after I got over it, I talked to him about it. He was my best friend, you know? So I was talking to him about it… telling him about the sex talk and telling him how weird it was." I bite my bottom lip and look up at the ceiling. "…Hearing that he's been in love with me for a while, makes me wonder… if that time, when we were little eleven and twelve year olds… just curious about it. I wonder if that meant anything to him." I lick my lips.

"So you had your first sexual encounter when you were eleven? With your best friend?"

"…I guess you can say that." I shrug. "It wasn't even…" I crack a smile, more out of embarrassment than happiness though. "We thought we were doing something SO big and bad… oh, we thought we were like… the worst kids in the world for doing it. But it wasn't anything. It was stupid, really." I shrug my shoulders. "We were both scared out of our minds about it. We were just like… five seconds." I laugh at myself. "I started it… which was weird. Because I don't ever start things like that. But I was so curious and little and infantile. I was like… oh, show me yours and I'll show you mine for five seconds. And we flashed each other for five… freaking…seconds. We thought we were the worst kids on the planet for that."

"Is that something you blocked out?" She writes that down in the notebook.

"…Not really. I mean… I might've. I kind of just… act like I don't remember it. It's not my proudest moment, obviously. So when Shane tries to bring it up, I act like I don't remember. But I do. I remember it like it was yesterday. I was the one that brought it up. I was the even the one that suggested we should touch them. It was all me. Flash for five seconds… touch for five seconds… it was all so stupid but I swore I was going to hell for that when I was younger." I roll my eyes. "Whatever. But yeah… I've been around that for a really long time now. I don't think I'm too young to be having sex personally, but… I mean… to each their own."

"…So you say that Shane has some… underlying feelings for you. How do you feel about that?"

"…Like he should get over himself. I don't like Shane like that. I don't think I could ever like Shane like that. I've been thinking about it…" I sigh. "And I guess I could understand why he fell for me. I did pursue him with that whole five seconds thing. And we have kissed twice. And I guess… we're a little too close for best friends, maybe. But it was never anything more serious than that for me. I'm really… in love with Alex, I think. I don't even think of Shane like I think of Alex. It's like… two different things, you know?"

"…I think this is a pretty good place to end today's session." She closes her notebook and puts the cap on her pen.

"You do?" I raise my eyebrow at her. _It kind of feels like we were in the middle of things…_

"Yeah, I do." She stands up. "I'm starting to understand you, Jo. You're not that easy to understand… but I think I've got a pretty good handle on you. I think I'm starting to grasp the way your little mind works. You think…" She offers her hand to me to help me stand up from my chair. I put my hand inside hers and let her pull me up. "You think that things… things that are miniscule are a big deal. And things that are a REALLY big deal… aren't a big deal. You're ass-backwards. But it's an interesting take." I give her a puzzled look. "You have a 4.0 GPA, and I know you're smart enough to know that you're NOT pregnant. But you made a big spiel about that. You had sex with your boyfriend, which is something all teenagers do. You made a big deal about that. Those things are pretty minor. But you think they're major. And on the other hand, you're telling me that you've been around sexual natures since you were eleven, and that's not a big deal to you. You have a pretty unhealthy relationship with sex…in general. And you don't think that's a big deal. I get you, kid. Your mind is strange… but I get it."

"…I mean… you're the doctor, right?" I shrug my shoulders.

"Yes. I am the doctor. And I think you're making some really good progress with me." She gives me a brief hug. "…What are you doing when you leave here?"

"I'm going to hang out with my girlfriends. They invited me over for cheap takeout and movies… to celebrate my first day back at school."

"Have fun with your friends. And…come back to see me tomorrow, if you can. Same time, same place. I'll bring cookie dough Pop-Tarts."

"…Okay." I smile at her and leave the room. _She says that I'm making progress. I really don't see how I'm making progress though. Maybe that's the thing about progress, though. Maybe you don't always have to see it for it to be there._

* * *

**Wed, Nov 11, 2013**

**5:44 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **hey

**5:50 p.m.**

**Me: **hey :) whats up?

**Alex: **nothing. I miss u. what r u doing?

**Me: **watching tv with leah, heather and steph lol. hbu?

**Alex: **O. thought u were grounded still

**Me: **i kinda am lol. i'm on like… semi-house arrest lol.

**Alex: **So basically we cant hang out but u can hang out with ur friends. U cant hang out with just me rite?

**Me: **no…. i just have to ask before i go somewhere and i might not be allowed to go or not.

**Alex: **Is that y u ditched me for ur friends?

**Me: **i didn't ditch you. what ?

**Alex: **U kinda did. I asked u if u wanted to come ovr 4 a little while n u said no

**Me: **bc i already made plans with my friends?

**Alex: **O ok. I get it

**Me: **whats your problem? lol

**Alex: **It's a frekin crime 4 me to want to hang out with my gf.

**Me: **no its not. i just had plans. i'm sorry i already had plans. i wasn't gonna ditch the girls for you. they already ordered my food and stuff… wtf?

**Alex: **Wow looks like everybody was rite…

**Me: **okay?

**Alex: **I am way more into u than u are to me

**Me: **wow omfg that's not true.

**Alex: **ok

**Me: **ok?

**Me: **alex?

**Me: **are you serious right now?

**Me: **omfg what do you want me to do? tattoo it across my forehead?

**Me: **i love you.

**Me: **the silent treatment?

**Me: **really?

**Me: **alex….

**Me: **A

**Me: **L

**Me: **E

**Me: **X

**Me: **alexxxxxxxxxxxxx

**Me: **alexander :/

**Me: **alex?

**Me: **baby?

**Me: **can you answer me?

"Jo? Are you cool?" Steph hands me my container of food and hands me a fork. "You look a little freaked…"

"Alex is pissed at me for some reason." I shrug my shoulders. "Do you guys care if I leave a little early to go talk to him? I'll stay here, of course… but do you care if I leave a little early? I just want to make sure he's okay." I take the top off my container of Chinese food and twirl my fork inside my lo mein noodles. "I think he's mad that I ditched him to come with you guys. But I didn't really ditch him… I made plans with you guys first."

"Of course we don't care if you leave us to go talk to your man. The man comes first… keep the man happy." Leah winks at me. "You got the poor guy whipped."

"He's not whipped… he's just… he misses me." I sigh and fork some food into my mouth. "He told me earlier that he missed me and I still ditched him. I'm just a bad girlfriend, I guess… He misses me and I practically act like I don't care."

"He's whipped. It's not you he misses…" Heather nudges me on my back. "It's the meow that he misses."

Leah laughs at her. "Totally. He's totally pussy-whipped. You gotta learn what the different 'I miss yous' mean, Jo. He just saw you for six hours at school. How much missing can he be doing? He's calling you over for one reason, and one reason only… he wants it."

"I don't think so." I lean back against Leah's bed and eat more of my food. "He's incredibly hard to keep happy sometimes. He thinks he likes me more than I like him. Which isn't true…"

"It does kind of seem that way…" Steph mumbles.

"…Does it really?" I put my food down and look at the three of them. "…Does it?" Heather shrugs her shoulders as if she wants to stay out of it. Leah looks away from me and sips her Dr. Pepper. Steph just acts like she didn't even say it. "Seriously? Does it seem like he likes me more than I like him? Because it's not like that…"

"I'm just saying… if it were Shane…." Leah starts rambling, but I just tune her out. _I don't want to know what it would be like "if it were Shane". For the record, Shane likes me. So you think you have your perfect relationship. You think your relationship is flawless enough to give me advice on mine. Same goes for Heather, actually. I'll pass on advice from Heather too. Aaron had a crush on me as well. I'm not taking relationship advice from any of them. _

"…Quick question, guys…" I try to hide the fact that I'm really freaking annoyed with the three of them at the moment. I'm not sure if I'm annoyed with them more than I'm annoyed with the fact that they think they have good relationships when they don't. Maybe that's the root of my annoyance. "…What are the rules here? Because you guys clearly don't want me to tell April… and I won't. I promised that I won't tell her, and I keep my promises. I won't tell her. But how far does that even go? Like… how do I know you guys wouldn't vow to tell me if one of you guys fucked Alex? Or what if someone in our group fucked Shane, Leah? Or Aaron, Heather? Wouldn't you guys want to know? Especially if someone in the group already knew?"

Steph rolls her eyes at me. "See, this is why we didn't even want to tell you. We didn't want to put you in this type of position. We all knew it would be screwed up for you, so we didn't even want to tell you. We knew you couldn't handle it. I knew, anyway."

"…Don't get smart with me, Steph." I state that very matter-of-factly. "And I'm not even trying to cause arguments here. I'm just saying. You seem pretty proud of yourself for it…"

"But I'm not." She throws her hands out at me. "And if you would let your loyalty to us oversee the fact that I slept with your friend's boyfriend, you'd know that. I'm not proud of myself for that. I wish he was single. But the thing is… he's not. Now I'm this big homewrecker and I never wanted to be that. It just happened. I know you've made mistakes that have just happened before, Jo. I know you have. You strike everyone as the holier-than-thou type… but I don't think you're all that innocent. And I don't think you're in the position to be judging me."

"….I'm not judging you. And I'm not…. I'm loyal to you guys. Hence the entire reason why I HAVEN'T said shit to April about it. I could've been… I could've been said something to her about it. But I haven't… because I'm loyal to you guys."

Leah clears her throat and speaks up. "So if you're so loyal to us…. then why even waste time asking about the 'rules' we have? See, I knew it was a mistake even telling her about it, Steph. I knew it. I knew she was too much of a goody-two-shoes to keep something like that a secret."

Even Heather says something to me. "You don't really know anything about loyalty, Jo. Not to us…"

I feel like it's three against one. They're attacking me. "I DO, THOUGH." I throw my hands up in the air. "I'm loyal to you guys! You guys are my friends! So of course, if you asked me not to say something to April, I'm NOT going to say anything to April. But I'm just saying… Steph seems real proud of herself for it… which basically means she has no class…" _Did you just say that? _"…Not what I meant…"

"….No, it's what you meant." Steph looks at me like she's HURT.

"No, it's NOT what I meant." I try to do the damage control, but it's already done. "I meant like… you don't feel bad for what you did, so—"

"No, screw you Jo. You don't get to judge me for this."

"I'M NOT JUDGING YOU." _Calm yourself down. Please don't blow up like this on Steph. _"I'm fucking… I'm just saying. I'm assuming that since you don't—"

Leah looks pretty pissed at me too. "That's the whole point. You're assuming. You don't know anything about how she's feeling…"

I roll my eyes. "IF YOU GUYS WOULD LET ME FREAKING TALK."

Heather shakes her head. "What's there left to say? You already called her classless…"

"BUT IT'S NOT WHAT I MEANT." I bawl my hands up into fists and squeeze. _Calm down… calm down… calm. down. _"I want to know what you guys consider breaking the damn code. Because clearly, nobody thinks about how April would probably feel. You guys asked me not to tell, so I won't tell. But what are the rules at stake? It just makes me wonder… would you guys tell me if you knew that Alex slept around on me? Would it be breaking the code if I told you guys about your boyfriends? What are the freaking rules?"

"Which just proves you're not loyal to us." Leah shakes her head. "The fact that you're even thinking about telling April… you don't know shit about loyalty, Jo."

"I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT TELLING APRIL, MY GOD!" My hands are shaking and I'm about to start crying real, frustration tears. I need to hit something… or someone.

Steph, as if I need her to do this, she scoots closer to me and starts messing with me. "What are you gonna do now, Jo? Are you gonna hit me? You already told me that I'm trashy…. Are you gonna hit me next?"

I squeeze my fists tighter and grind my teeth together. The tears spill over my eyelids. "Get away from me, Stephanie. I really don't want to fucking…" My jaw trembles. I'm getting madder and madder by the second. "Don't make me…." _Get up and walk away! Walk away… NOW. _For once in my life, I listen to the voice in my head and stand up. _Now choke it back. Choke it back and don't you dare… too late, eh? _

Before I leave the room, I stand in front of the three of them."Am I breaking the fucking code by telling you that Shane's IN LOVE WITH ME? How about the fact that he kissed me? Twice? Or maybe the fact that he had his arms around my waist last night… does that break the code?" _Shut up, Josephine. Shut up. _"Oh, or what about the fact that Alex had to TALK AARON INTO GETTING TO KNOW YOU, BECAUSE HE HAD A CRUSH ON ME AT FIRST?! I want to know the rules so I know whether or not I should hurt your feelings or not." I take two deep breaths. "…You guys created me. You created a little fucking monster that… that acts sexy… shows off her ass… that can have any guy she wants, right? Well what happens when your boyfriends want me?" I roll my eyes and turn to leave the house. "…And I still won't tell April. THAT'S how much I know about loyalty."

I leave Leah's room and slam the door on my way out. I'm going to go try and make amends with my boyfriend.

* * *

**Wed, Nov 11, 2013**

**6:30 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **do you want to talk about it?

**Alex: **No.

**Me: **well we kind of have to. i'm not in the mood to argue with you. i'm in a horrible mood tbfh.

**Alex: **what's ur prob.?

**Me: **i'm just pissed. add that to the fact that you wont fucking talk to me. i'm in a shit mood.

**Alex: **we can talk about the reason ur pissed if u want

**Me: **but not about why you wont talk to me?

**Alex: **the whole purpose of this is so we wont argue, rite? Tell me about y ur so pissed off.

**Me: **k.

I put my phone down on his nightstand and turn towards him. That was a really good idea, by the way. We both established the fact that we didn't want to argue about me ditching him for the girls. We didn't want to argue, so instead of talking it out, we decided to text about it so we wouldn't scream and yell. That was a good idea. "…I'm sure you already know that Jackson cheated on April with Stephanie… right?" He nods his head. "Well they don't want me to tell April about it… and I won't. I promised them that I wouldn't tell, so I won't tell. But I don't agree with it. I don't agree with that. April's my friend. And I would want somebody to tell me if you slept with another girl. Especially if you were my friend and you knew about it and you didn't tell me. I'm just saying… that if I could, I would totally tell April. But they asked me not to, so I won't. And they all got pissed with me because I feel like… I feel like Steph's wrong. So they started screaming and hollering at me about it. But it's weird, because I know things about their boyfriends… you know?"

"…Yeah." As if he can't resist the urge to touch me, he reaches out and grabs onto my foot. "…Like they want you to tell them that Aaron had a crush on you, right?"

"Exactly! And…" I close my eyes. "…Okay, I need you to hear me out about this… okay?" He nods again. "…Obviously me and Shane have history. Shane's been talking about how he used to like me… and stuff. So would I be wrong if I told Leah that?" I lie just a little bit to him. I just don't want Shane and Alex to have a fall out over me. So if I lie and say that Shane USED to crush on me and not currently… it doesn't make a difference, does it? "They're just so fucking unfair…"

"Dammit." He stops touching my foot. "…I knew it." He looks kind of disappointed. "It's Ross, isn't it?"

"….What's Shane?"

"…I know I said we wouldn't argue about it, but I just have to know…" He rubs on the little bit of stubble he has on his chin. "Is Ross the reason you're not really into me that much? That's why he was looking at you like that. Did you sleep with Ross at some point?"

I make some type of disgruntled noise that I can't even begin to explain and slam my head back against his pillow. "NOOOOOOOOOOOO, OKAY? NO!" I just stare up at the ceiling. "I don't…. I don't like Shane. And I'm into you, Alex. I'm really into you. I LOVE you…. what do I have to do to get you to believe me? I never had sex with Shane. I had sex with you… some boy at the YMCA and… him. Okay? Those are my three bodies. I've never given a boy oral… I've never gotten oral from anybody other than you. You're it for me, Alex… you're it. But I won't lie… I'm nervous about it."

"Why are you nervous? Is this going back to the whole baby thing? Because I gotta admit… I really don't want you to have my kid. You gotta cut me a break here though. I'm… doing all these things that I don't normally do just to make you happy. I only… I only said that, because I thought that's what you would want to hear. And I mean… I guess it's true. I guess I really wouldn't walk out on you and a kid… but I mean…"

"It's not that. It's just that…" I lean forward and lay on him so he knows that I'm really serious about this. "Everybody I decide to love….leaves me. They have heart attacks… they abandon me… they decide to change the whole damn script up on me and decide that they love me… but not in the way that I love them. I just… have a nice way of screwing things up for myself, okay? And I don't want to screw you up. Because you're the ONLY thing I'm sure about right now. I mean… I'm not sure if I'll ever be okay. I'm not sure if I'm pregnant. I'm not sure if I'm not pregnant. I'm not even sure if I care what happens to Jason anymore. But I'm sure that I love you. I'm sure that you're the only good thing that's happened to me within the past month. But I'm trying… okay? I'm trying to get back to normal for you. I'm really trying. And if you stick with me… I mean REALLY stick with me… I think I'll get there. I'll get there. And I'll be worth it."

"…You're already worth it." He shakes his head at me.

"No, that's not what I meant… I mean…"

"Shut up."

"Okay."

He puts his arms around me and squeezes me. "…I'm not letting you go. You know… we're the same person. I mess things up too. And I let good things go all the time. But I'm not gonna let you slip away. And you'll always have me. Even when I hate you… even when I can't freaking stand you. You still have me. So what that your friends are mad at you. I'm not. I'm all you need, right?"

"…Yeah." I nod my head and kiss him on his lips. "You're all I need." _Ew… I have that feeling again. It feels weird. But I think I know this feeling. I think. _"Let me go…" I move his arms away from me. "…I'll be right back." I stand up from his bed, open up his bedroom door and take a couple steps down the hall. _I might puke… but I don't think it's from morning sickness… is it? No. _I shut the bathroom door behind me. _Not a nauseous feeling. Just a nasty feeling. I feel nasty. _I unbutton my jeans, grab the rims of both my jeans and my underwear and pull them down just enough so I can see inside of them. I throw my head back and look up at the ceiling.

I've never been so happy to see a bright red streak of blood in my underwear before. While I'm a little bit pissed that this means I have to go home a little earlier than anticipated, I'm more relieved than angry. "Thank you lord… thank you good god. Thank you… thank you… thank you." I wad up some toilet paper and stick it in the base of my panties. Maybe god doesn't hate me so much.

* * *

**A/N: **For the record, I would NEVER make Jo pregnant lol. I already made up my mind like... three days ago that she wasn't pregnant. Just needed a little drama lol. That's just mean and cruel and just... MEAN. Even for me, that's mean. I would never make the poor kid pregnant after everything she's already been through. It was just for a little bit of drama, and it was fun for me to toggle with the idea. But I wouldn't do that to the poor kid. I'm not that mean to my characters. I want poor Jo to be happy too.

P.S. Please don't get mad at me for the little added detail about Jo/Shane back when they were kids. The whole Shane thing will die down eventually, I promise. Don't yell at me too bad! lol :D (At least I didn't fuck everything up and say they had sex when they were younger, right? And it's believable that they would be curious at young ages, because aren't we all?) Plus, I'm trying (without success, it seems) to get you guys to at least empathize with Shane just a little. He has to have a reason to be so in love with Jo, yes?

P.S. (again) I start school on Wednesday, so updates will be so all over the place :(


	43. Progress?

**A/N: **Chapter is slightly **M **rated.

* * *

"So…what'd you do to Leah and Steph and Heather?" Shane asks while he's busy putting a sheet set on my bed. We got my furniture out of the old house today and I have my very own room to sleep in tonight. I am excited about that, but I have too much on my mind to be too excited about it. I wrinkle my brows at him to let him know that I'm unaware of what he's talking about while I set my perfumes, makeup and other personals up on my dresser. Obviously I know what he's talking about…how could I forget that I pissed them off today? But I want to find out just how much he knows before I go spilling the beans to him. "They just seem pretty pissed at you. Like… on Facebook and stuff."

"They're talking about me on Facebook?" I put my deodorant beside my makeup bag. "…What are they saying?" I dust my hands off like I just did some major work and sit down in my pink beanbag chair that we took from my old room. I don't think Leah told Shane what I said. I mean, clearly she didn't. If she had told him, he'd be pissed at me too and not helping me set up my new room. "I haven't logged on today, so I haven't been able to see what they're saying. Is it anything worth me getting on and looking at?"

He grabs my quilt and starts spreading it over my bed too. "I don't know… it was kinda pointless, so I just stopped reading after a while. They seem pretty pissed at you, though. What'd you even do? They mainly just called you a bunch of names, that's all… but I was wondering what you did."

"It's nothing." I lean up from my beanbag chair and grab my phone off my nightstand. "…You and Jackson and Alex are good friends, aren't you? So I'm sure you know about the Jackson and Stephanie incident, huh?" I unlock my phone and go straight to my Facebook app. I wasn't tagged in any statuses, so I wonder where they were talking about me at.

"Oh… yeah. That's wild, isn't it?" He sits down on the edge of my bed and leans down to look through my Facebook with me. "What's Steph thinking about it? I know Jackson's really beating himself up about it." He sticks his finger out and taps on Steph's profile on my Facebook. "…It's here. On this status." He shows me.

"Jackson's beating himself up about it?" I tap on the comments of the status Shane directed me to. "Steph seems pretty proud of herself for it, honestly. Which is…I mean, I guess that's part of the reason why they're so mad at me. Steph doesn't feel bad about it and I don't agree with it. I think she should at least show some remorse, you know? I mean, she did sleep with somebody else's boyfriend… you know? And I guess I made the mistake of telling her that I felt that way. I told her that I didn't agree with her on it. And they all got pissed off." I scroll all the way to the top of the comments so I can read them from the beginning.

"Yeah, Jackson's not happy with himself. He says he was really drunk… but I don't think he was drunk enough, you know?" He touches my hair and I politely let him know that I don't want him to touch me like that anymore by moving my head. "I think… if he was really all that drunk… he wouldn't even know that he slept with her, right? If you're too drunk to know what's going on, you're not gonna remember doing something. But it's clear that he feels bad about it. He's like… ignoring Stephanie. He says that she keeps trying to text him about it but he doesn't answer. And he can't even look at April. But I feel like that's his own fault. Don't you?"

"Yeah… I guess. I don't know." I shrug. "I kind of don't even want to have an opinion about it anymore. The last time I had an opinion about it, my friends started yelling at me. It's just weird, because if anything… I'd expect Leah to side with me. I'd expect her to agree with how I feel about it. All they hear is that… I want to tell April, which isn't really true. I don't want to tell April about it. I mean… I do. I do feel like she deserves to know. But I keep my promises. You know that, Shane. You know I keep my promises. And I promised them that I wouldn't say anything to April about it, so I won't say anything to April about it. I just expected some understanding from Leah, at the very least. Because she'd damn sure want to know if someone slept with you. I just… I don't know. I don't have an opinion about it anymore. It's not my business."

"…It sure seems like your business. You pissed them off pretty good for them to be talking about you the way they were on Steph's status." He motions for me to look at my phone. I take a breath and begin reading.

**Stephanie Edwards: **Wow it seems like you can't trust anyone these days. –**Feeling betrayed. **(13 likes, 25 comments)

I scroll down to the start to the comments.

**Leah M: **it's okay stephy. You got me and heather and that's all you need. Love you. (3 people liked this comment)

**Heather B: **hang in there steph! (1 person liked this comment)

**Stephanie E: **I love you guys so much :)

**Lexie G: **Are you okay Steph? You know you can trust the cheer squad, right? :D

**Stephanie E: **I'm fine Lex :) thanks for asking. & Yeah. I just got to be careful with who I trust these days.

**Heather B: **^^ true that. Bitches will smile in your face then talk shit behind your back smh.

**Leah M: **at least we know who our real friends are. :p

**Shane R: **You guys should really stop telling fb all your business lol. Plus its obvious who your talking about.

**Leah M: **^^ shut up :p & you need to call me later. around 9.

**Stephanie E: **idc if it's obvious lol. she knows shes a backstabber so it doesn't matter. i would've tagged her, but i cant even stand seeing her name at this point.

**Heather B: **Forget about her. we don't need her. everybody knows shes a bitch anyway so its nothing new.

**Leah M: **Idk she just rubs me the wrong way now. She takes the word bitch to a different level.

**Stephanie E: **Exactly! & I'm the trashy one? Ok.

**Heather B: **Steph I was gonna ask you to borrow that one black and yellow sparkly shirt you have, but I decided against it. I forgot that you don't have class. :p

**Leah M: **ew heather why would you want to borrow clothes from a trashy whore? Lmfao.

**Stephanie E: **I don't have class. How do I even have friends? I'm so trashy.

**Lucy F: **if this is about who I think it's about… LOL.

**Leah M: **lolololol. Lucy stop talking to steph. She has no class ok?

**Heather B: **yeah. steph will throw down and fight with you in the middle of the street. she'll walk around and tease everybody lol. she has no class remember?

**Stephanie E: **lets not forget that its better ON instead of IN, guys :b im sooooo classless.

**Leah M: **ewwww omfg shut up!

**Heather: **LMAO STEPH.

**Stephanie E: **just thought I had the right to talk shit bc I'm the queen of classiness you know?

**Lucy F: **on instead of in? fill me in?

**Leah M: **it's an insider lus.

**Jo W: **wow… seriously? :L

"…I didn't even do anything." I lock my phone back up and sigh. "I really didn't even do anything, Shane. All I said was that Steph had no class… but I didn't even mean it that way." _Why are you sitting here venting to Shane? Like he cares? _"I couldn't think of the right word to say at the time. I meant to say that she had no remorse… not class. It slipped out and I didn't even mean it that way. They took it all out of context. And now they're bashing me on Facebook? That's not even right. I didn't do anything. And they're talking to Lucy again? After they were willing to jump in the fight to make sure I didn't get jumped… they're just gonna go back on her side? Like they were never on my side? That's not fair. I didn't even do anything."

"Well… you called Stephanie trashy…"

"Yeah, but I didn't mean it like that! It was an accident. Then I tried to explain myself, but they wouldn't even let me talk. So I just left. I wasn't about to just sit there and let them talk bad to me like that. They were talking real bad to me. It was three against one. Nobody was on my side. So I just said fuck it…. and left." _I really need to cut. It's really bad right now. I have the overwhelming urge to. _"And they just run my business… like it's nothing. I thought we were still friends. Like… we had an argument. I didn't think it was that serious for them to start running my business on the internet."

"…Yeah, what did they mean by on…instead of in? What's that whole thing about?"

"Nothing." I pick my phone back up to see what time it is. "Don't even worry about it. I shouldn't have even told them about it, but I did… so whatever." I shrug. "I don't even care anymore. I'm over it. I'm over everything."

"Well, Leah wants me to call her at 9. I'll talk to her about it or something…"

"Don't even bother." I'm totally not looking forward to school tomorrow. I just feel like something bad is going to happen.

* * *

**Thurs, Nov 12, 2013**

**8:12 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **hey, are you in the computer lab?

**8:15 a.m.**

**April: **Yes. Why?

**Me: **can i come hang out with you until fourth period?

**April: **I don't care. I have an assignment I have to do for senior seminar class but you can still come bother me. Make sure your teacher doesn't mind though. I'm downstairs in computer lab 102.

**Me: **okay. i'll be down soon.

I've never skipped a class in my life. I've never just… ditched a class before. It's fairly easy to get away with in a school as big as Garfield, but I've just never had the balls to do it. Today is a must, though. I just can't bring myself to sit in Spanish class with Stephanie and Heather. I endured first period geography with them and I just can't do it any longer. I never really considered myself as a punk or anything like that, because I tend to stand up for myself in certain situations. But I just don't know what to do at this point. I sat in my old seat at the front of the room in geography today. We were finishing the movie that we started yesterday, so I thought maybe I'd have it easy. Movie on means no loud talking…no arguing with them. But I guess that didn't count for them throwing things at me, trying to get my attention. I counted about seven paper balls that were thrown at me. Leah even walked beside my desk and slipped a note on it… I've been afraid to open it. I have second period Spanish with Heather and Stephanie (Leah takes French), Third period chemistry with sophomores (Lucy included), fourth period gym class with all three of them, and then I'm off to lunch. I'm skipping a few periods.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not afraid of Leah, Steph and Heather. I'm not afraid of them and I know that they won't do anything too horrible to me. I just don't want to risk them saying something or doing something that sends me over the edge. I refuse to blow up on my friends… if they're even my friends anymore. I'd still like to be their friend… somewhere inside of my mind. I think I'll miss them. I don't want to go back to being the loser I was at the beginning of the school year. I liked having girlfriends. I do want to be their friend. So if I have any hope of ever being their friend again, I can't blow up on them. And the best way to ensure that I don't blow up on them is to keep my distance.

I pick my purse up off the sink, put my phone in my pocket and leave out of the bathroom. I'm still not going to tell April. I've made my mind up about that. I'm going to feel horrible while I'm hanging out with her knowing what I know, but I'm not telling. At this point, I've lost my three best friends over this crap. They think I'm a slut that tried to take their boyfriends (actual words spoken from Heather, by the way) and they think that I don't have any loyalty to them. So if I keep my word and not tell April, even though we're having an argument… that'll show them, won't it? I still kept my word to them, even though they hate me at the moment. When we make up… if we make up, they'll see that I can be loyal to them.

Luckily for me, there's nobody in the hallway to stop me and ask me where I'm going. I hold onto the railing of the ramp and walk down it to get onto the first floor where the computer lab is. Once I reach the door, I knock on it a couple times and wait for somebody to let me in. If I'm not mistaken, this is the senior seminar class period in the computer lab so I'm probably about to be in here with a bunch of seniors. I don't care, though. Anything is better than being with a group of girls that hate me. Bouncy, red hair approaches the door. She opens it for me and lets me in. It's actually pretty empty in here. It's basically just April and three other kids.

"Since when do you cut class?" She greets me with her typical, cheerful April-smile and steps aside so I can come into the room. She goes back to the computer that she was sitting at and I take the empty seat beside her.

"I had to get outta there." I put my purse down on the floor next to my feet and put my head down on the computer table. "Do you know what it's like to be in a room full of people that hate your guts? It's nerve-wracking." I pick my head up and look at her. "You're like… the only person who can stand to be around me. My day's already the epitome of shitty and it just started."

"Your shitty day has to be better than my shitty week, kid." She starts typing something on the computer. "…Oh, and congratulations…" She doesn't even sound remotely congratulatory to be honest. She seems unimpressed and uninterested. "I heard the news… congrats. You're a woman now." She cracks a sideways smile.

"…Oh, you mean for doing the deed with Alex? Yeah, whatever I'm over that." I shrug like it's nothing, because it really isn't anything. "Why's your week been so shitty?"

"Why is everybody mad at you?" She completely ignores the fact that I just asked her a question and asks me one. "So far, I've heard that you're a slut… I've heard that you're a bitch. I've heard that you're a whore. I've heard your life been threatened. Why's everybody so… Anti-Jo today? All the little freshmen and sophomores, at least." She rolls her eyes at the "freshmen" part.

"…Haven't you heard? I'm the biggest whore around." I sigh and tap my fingers against the table. "My friends hate me. They think I'm trying to steal their boyfriends or something. And they keep putting me in these awkward positions. It's just… all this big misunderstanding. But everybody hates me. Nobody cares if it's a misunderstanding. Nobody cares what Jo has to say… Jo's a bitch. She's a whore that tries to steal everybody's boyfriends, you know? Damn the fact that she's in a happy relationship. Nope… fuck that. She wants Aaron Karev… she wants Shane Ross." I roll my eyes. "…Nevermind the fact that if I REALLY wanted them… I could have them. If I really wanted to take Aaron off Heather… I could. If I wanted Shane off Leah, I could snap my fingers and make that happen." I sigh. "Sorry Ape… I'm ranting."

"No, it's fine." She continues to type. "You could probably have Jackson if you wanted him too." She sounds a little bit bitter. "Seems like he can't resist freshmen these days."

"…You know?" _Oh my god, she KNOWS. _

"Jackson ratted himself out yesterday. It doesn't even matter, because we're done." Her nostrils flare up. "…With a freshman, though? And she's not even a cute freshman. I'd be way less insulted if he had sex with you. At least you're a pretty freshman. Stephanie Edwards isn't even… whatever. I'm insulted. He could've upgraded…. That's a SERIOUS downgrade. And you know, when guys cheat… usually they're cheating to get something that they can't get from their girlfriends. I do EVERYTHING for him… so I don't even know what he's looking for. Now I have to live with the fact that my boyfriend slept with a little freshman. A freshman can say that she knows what my boyfriend's like in bed… just… ugh. He disgusts me."

"…For the record, I wanted to tell you. My friends were just like… don't tell April. Which is why they're mad at me. They're mad at me because I told Stephanie that I thought she was wrong for doing it. They're pissed at me for thinking that Stephanie's in the wrong. So uh… just so we're clear, I'm totally on your side."

"You can't place the blame solely on the freshman, though. I'm not even mad at your little friend. I'm not pissed at her. It's Jackson I'm pissed at. He knew what he was doing. You guys are just little baby freshmen. I don't know, maybe this doesn't apply to you… because you don't really act like a baby freshman… but if a senior comes up to you and suggests that you should sleep together… especially a senior that looks like Jackson? How are you supposed to say no to a senior that's kissing all over you? I don't even blame Stephanie that much. Sure I can't stand her, because she's the other woman… but it's Jackson's fault."

"…I mean, I guess. But Steph didn't even feel bad for it. She was like… proud of it. Which is why I was so uncomfortable with not telling you. I mean… I'm a girl that keeps promises. I do. I keep all my promises. And I promised them that I wouldn't tell you… so even though I was feeling horrible by not telling you, I wasn't gonna tell you. Because I promised that I wouldn't. So it kind of made me uncomfortable. Because I just felt like… I felt like if I didn't tell you, then I was like… letting Steph know that it was okay? And it wasn't okay. I'd beat the crap out of someone if they slept with Alex… and I felt bad that you were being kept in the dark about it."

"Jackson can't lie to me, Jo. That's one thing I want you to know. So he was already a little off about it. He was all… weirdly obsessed with me all of a sudden. And he gets like that when he did something wrong. So I already knew. And I'm sorry, but if your friends were really your friends… they wouldn't put you in that kind of predicament. They're not your friends. They would never pit you against another group of friends if they really cared about you as much as they claim they do."

"…I kind of made them tell me." I shrug and pull the note that Leah slipped me out of my purse pocket. I don't know why, but for some reason, I feel okay enough to open it around April. "They basically told me that they didn't want to tell me. They told me that they didn't want to tell me because it would put me in a bad position. But I insisted that they tell me. So it's kind of my fault in a sense. But I don't get why they're so pissed at me. I would understand if they were mad about the fact that… yeah, I basically told them that I could have their boyfriends if I wanted them. I basically told them that. So yeah, that's a reason to be pissed at me. But they're not even harping on that. They're concentrating on the fact that I thought it would be the right thing to do to tell you. So I'm just confused… why are they so pissed? And why are they banding together with freaking…. Lucy." I open the note up and read it. _Meet us in the bathroom at the beginning of lunch. We want to talk to you. –Leah, Steph, Heather. _

"Lucy? Lucy Fields? The one whose ass you kicked? Girl, I saw the video…" Her eyes get really wide. "You didn't have to beat her up the way you did. You beat the shit out of that poor girl, Jo. And she keeps telling everyone that it's not over, but I'm just like… girl, you better let it be over. I'm never messing with you. You're lethal."

"Yeah, whatever. I'm not even worrying about her. I'm just glad she's not pressing charges against me."

"…You stepped on her face." She finally stops typing to look at me. "You held the poor girl down with your foot… and used the other foot to stomp on her face. Then you DRAGGED her off the porch… You're lethal as hell, Jo. Lethal. We watched the video the same way we watched your first fight video… in the middle of class."

"She asked for it." I shrug. "So… um, does Stephanie know that you know? Because they're still pissed at me… and I really want them to be… un-pissed, you know?"

"I don't know if she knows that I know and I don't give a damn. I'm not going to make a super big deal about it, because it's Jackson's fault too… right? And I'm not the type to get all in her face over it. It happened, me and Jackson are over, I have no intentions on getting back together with a cheater and that's that." All of a sudden, there's a knock at the door behind us. "I don't care how drunk he claims he was… you don't sleep with someone, remember it and say you were super drunk. That's the worst excuse…" She scoots out of her chair and walks over to the door. "Geez Alex… you didn't have to come hunt her down. I promise I'm not killing her. What do you… have a tracker on her ass?"

I giggle at the greeting she gives him as he walks through the door saying nothing back to her besides a low, monotone, "Shut up, Kepner." He comes directly over to me and puts his hands on my shoulders. "What's up?" He uses his thumbs to massage my shoulders. I lean my head back against his legs and look up at him while he's standing over me. It's weird how he can instantly make me feel better. I'm beyond happy to see him.

"How'd you know I was in here?" I grab ahold of his arms and pull him down to me. I reach up and knot my fingers through his hair. "Your hair's damp…. You take a shower this morning?"

"Mhm." He bends his knees a little so that his face is level with mine and gives me a soft kiss. "I always know where you're at. I have tabs everywhere on you… don't forget that. I missed you… so I came to see you."

"You just saw me this morning in breakfast." I stretch my neck out and kiss him once more. "You can't possibly miss me already."

"I always miss you." He sweeps my hair out of my face and pulls my shirt up. "You're showing way too much for me. What'd I tell you about wearing V-necks?"

"It's the only long-sleeved shirt I had clean. You're the only one that even said something about it." I stand up out of my chair so he can sit down. He sits down in the chair and I sit down on his lap. I lean forward so I can still watch while April types up her assignment and my shirt comes up a little bit in the back when I lean forward. Of course, Alex is all over that. He puts his hands on the soft skin that's exposed on my lower back from my shirt riding up. With his fingertips, he lightly starts stroking my hips. "Why do you insist on touching me? You always have to touch me. I could be sitting across the table, and you'd have to touch me. It's like you never get enough of…touching me." I like it when he touches me, though. It lets me know that he's actually there… and not just… there. You know?

"Sometimes I still can't believe that you're real." He rests his head in the middle of my back and keeps stroking my hips with the tips of his fingers. "Touching you lets me know that you're real. And you're mine. So I touch you because I can." He stops rubbing my hips and moves up to my back. "And I touch your back because you're mine and I can." He runs his hands through my hair. "I'm allowed to touch your hair…" He moves it to the side so that he has access to my neck. He leans up just slightly and puts his lips to the base of my neck. "I can kiss you… all because you're mine and I'm allowed." He puts his hands back on my hips, but they don't stay on my hips of course. They slide up under my shirt, past my belly ring and to the cups of my bra.

"…Stop." I whisper to him while I push his hands away. He uses his strength to resist me and he keeps his hands on my boobs. I exhale sharply, letting him know that I'm just a little bit frustrated with him. He gently squeezes my chest. "Alex… stop, we're in school." I mumble to him through clenched teeth. His mouth is still on my neck so I can feel the fact that he's smiling. Skillfully, he moves just the both of his thumbs so that they're inside the cups of my bra. "I'm going to kill you, stop!" I push his hands away again but in turn, all I do is push his thumbs deeper into my bra.

"Hush…nobody's looking." He closes his lips from the smile and kisses below my ear. He's right. Nobody's looking and April stopped paying attention to us about five minutes ago. But that's not the point. The point is that we're in a public place and he's feeling me up. And he won't stop. He refuses to stop. His thumbs trace circles around my boobs and I roll my eyes up at the ceiling when he does that. He takes one hand…and one hand only away from my chest and moves it down between my legs. I, of course, wasn't in the mood to put on jeans this morning so I have on a pair of yoga pants… but I'm really starting to wish I had worn jeans instead because I'm too easily accessible through yogas. He starts to rub me through my pants and I look down and watch him. His thumb is teasing me back and forth….back and forth… I grit my teeth together.

I don't want him to stop, but again… that's not the point. I grab his wrist and squeeze it. "…Stooooop." I move his hand away but he resists me. I turn my head around so that I'm looking him in his face. "…Period." I mouth to him.

"So what? Doesn't mean I can't tease you…" He plants another kiss on my neck. He rubs all over my legs. "I love you in tight pants…"

"Look…" I move his hands away from me again. "I'll come over later. I'll come over later and you can… feel me up all you want. You can do all the touching… feeling… all of that. I don't care. Just not in school… okay?" I kiss him on his cheek. "Not in school. I don't want to get caught… and everybody already thinks I'm a hoe anyway… so not in school." I put my hands on his cheeks and stroke his face. "Even if nobody's looking. Even if I don't want you to stop… you hear me?" He's looking me in my eyes but it doesn't quite look like he's listening. "Baby… Alex."

"…You're so beautiful." He puts his hands on my own face. "Everything about you…" He kisses my cheek. "Your face…" He kisses my lips. "Your lips…"

"I love you…" _He really does make you feel like you're the most important person in the world. I think I understand what people mean whenever they claim that their hearts skip a beat… he makes my world stop._

* * *

"Aren't you sitting with me today?" Alex squeezes my hand and tries to pull me back when we walk into the lunch room. "Where are you going? Are you not hungry?" He notices that I'm hesitant to enter the lunch room. The table in the middle of the lunch room where all the cheerleaders sit at isn't empty, but it's missing a few members. The girls told me to meet them in the bathroom at the start of lunch so they could talk to me…that's probably where they are. I haven't yet decided if I was actually going to go to the bathroom to meet them. I do want to talk to them and all, but I'm worried to. I'm scared that if I do go talk to them, we might argue. "Jo… what's going on?" Alex pulls me some more.

"…You go 'head to the table… I'll catch up with you. I um…" I glance back at the bathroom and see Heather walk into it. "Leah. Leah, Stephanie and Heather want to talk to me. Probably about what happened last night…so I'll catch up with you. You go on." I take my hand out of his hand and backpedal towards the bathrooms.

"I'll come with you." He grabs ahold of my sleeve. "I don't trust those girls…"

"Alex, you can't go into the ladies' room with me." I smile at him to assure him that I'll be okay. "I'll be fine. They just want to talk to me. Probably ask me to apologize… probably apologize themselves. That's all. I'll be out in a minute. Go eat… I'll catch up with you. I'll catch up with you." He very reluctantly lets my hand go. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Alright." He nods once and walks off without me.

I'll be alright as long as I stay calm with them. I don't want to blow up on my friends because then, we might not be able to be friends anymore. I did a good job with restraining myself against Stephanie yesterday, so all I have to do is do that again. I'll be fine. I just can't let them piss me off too badly. I fix my hair to make sure I look presentable and walk off in the direction of the bathroom. _They're probably gonna ask you to tell them about Shane having a crush on you and Aaron having a crush on you. Just downplay it. Just act like it's not a big deal…because it's not. _At the entrance to the bathroom, a tall, brunette girl is guarding. She's a cheerleader; I've seen her around before. I think her name is Anna. "…Can I get in here?" I ask her.

"Jo? Yeah, they've been waiting for you." She steps aside and lets me through.

"Thank you." I mumble and walk inside the bathroom. Leah's sitting on the sinks, Steph's standing beside the garbage can and Heather is standing by the handicap stall busily texting someone. A couple more cheerleaders are crowded around, I don't know their names. And Lucy's standing right next to Leah. Standing next to Steph, Meredith's sister, Lexie is just watching with a smile. I stand over by the hand-dryers and fold my arms across my chest. _I forgot that quickly just how popular Steph, Leah and Heather are. I forgot they had friends outside of each other. And I forgot that the cheerleading squad sticks together. You might have to tell a couple lies here. _"…You guys want to talk to me?" My tone comes out in a very harsh, sarcastic manner but I didn't mean for it to. I'm just a little defensive at the moment.

Steph takes a step towards me and I can tell by the look on her face that she's LIVID. "So why did Cristina Yang come up to me and tell me that I'd better watch my back? Because _April _won't go after the other woman, but _April's friends _will? How does APRIL know that I slept with her boyfriend?"

_Oh my god, she thinks you told… _My jaw drops and I shake my head."Look, Steph… I didn't—"

Leah speaks up this time. "Don't lie about it, Jo… if you told, you told. We knew you would. We knew you would tell."

"I didn't though… I swear I didn't—"

Heather interrupts me this time. "Yeah? Is that why you ditched Spanish to go hang out in the computer lab with her?"

"…NO! I … I didn't tell! I went to the computer lab because I—"

"Save your excuses, Jo. I just can't believe I ever trusted you. You're a backstabbing little bitch, you know? Except… you're worse than that, because you try to act like you're so innocent. At least…God, at least I can admit when I'm being a bitch. You try to act like you're so holier than us when you're not." Steph is REALLY pissed at me. "I can't believe I ever trusted you."

I put my hands out to try and explain better…if they'd let me talk. "I swear to god… I didn't tell April. I went down to the lab and she just like… she knew! I swear she already knew… it was crazy. I didn't tell her. I promised I wouldn't and I didn't! Guys, I'm… I'm loyal to you. And—"

Heather laughs under her breath. "Yeah, you're so loyal… is that why you keep going after Aaron? And Shane? You're such a… bitch, Jo. You try to set us up with guys… and then you go after them… but then you get all mad when someone tries to go after your guy? That's not what loyalty is…"

"…I don't want Shane… and I don't want Aaron… guys, they have crushes on me! Aaron… Aaron was mad at Alex for a really long time over me, because HE liked me… and Shane… he just… he JUST now told me how he felt about me, I swear. I didn't know… if I knew, I would've never tried to… please believe me, guys… THEY like me. I don't like them…"

Lucy mumbles something under her breath. "Yeah, because you're oh so pretty. Everybody wants you, right?"

"…What do you have to do with anything?" I turn to Lucy and call her out on it.

"Not my fault that everybody else finally sees through your bullshit." She rolls her eyes at me.

"….Steph, Leah and Heather, can we talk? Just us? Without anybody else?" I feel so small right now. I'm really not a confrontational person at all. I don't know what to do in this situation. I don't… know how to react. I feel so little…small…weak. I've never been in a situation like this before. I don't know what to do… "I just really want to talk to you guys… I'm not like that… you guys know me." I look at the three of them, and they're not even looking at me. "Leah?" _I thought me and Leah really made a connection that one night… maybe not._

"…Lucy's right, Jo." Leah nods her head and swings her feet while she sits up on the sinks. "We… we see how you really are. You're a little bit of a… well… a conceited bitch."

Steph jumps in. "And don't pull that whole 'we made you' card. We taught you how to be confident… not a cocky man-stealer."

"I'm not a man-stealer! I didn't…" I put my hands over my face so they don't see me cry. _Don't cry… don't show them weakness. _"Can we please just talk this out? Before this gets any more out of hand than it's already gotten? Please?"

Heather puts her phone down and sighs. "What do you mean by that? Are you gonna punch us? Are you gonna hold us down and stomp on our faces too?"

"I would never…." I purse my lips together. "I wouldn't do that to you guys… you guys are my friends. I just wanna talk about it. I'm not a man-stealer, I didn't tell April, I'm not like that. You guys know me…" I can't hold back the tears anymore. I hold my head in my hand and look away from all of them. "You guys know me… you know I wouldn't…" They're not even listening to me. They're whispering amongst themselves. I quiet myself down to hear what they're saying.

"You said Shane admitted that she crawled in his bed and flirted with him last night… I think you should go first." Lucy whispers to Leah. _It wasn't even like that! It wasn't like that! I mean… I don't know. Maybe… maybe I do tease Shane a little, but I'm done sleeping in his bed. I'm done, I swear._

Leah leans forward and whispers back to Lucy. "Yeah, but you know good and well that none of us stand a chance by ourselves. Girl's crazy…"

"She's not going to do anything while we're all standing here. We won't let her." Heather chimes in this time.

"If you guys won't, I will." Lucy offers. "She already has it coming from me, still. But you guys have to have my back. I'll start it… but I think Leah should."

"Or even you, Heather." One of the cheerleaders that I don't know the name of, adds her two cents in. "She's after Aaron."

_I'm leaving. This is just so pointless. They won't listen to me. They won't let me talk. They don't care about what I have to say. So why am I just going to sit here? _I wipe my face free of tears and turn to leave the room. Steph reaches out and pulls me back by my shirt, though. "You're not gonna leave until you tell me the truth. Did you tell April?"

"…No." I shake my head at her. "Steph, I really didn't do it."

"So then who did?" She crosses her arms and taps her foot like an impatient mother. "Somebody did. Somebody told her and now her friends want to kill me. So if you didn't tell, then who did?!"

"…April said Jackson told her." Steph starts walking towards me, which causes me to back up until finally, my back is in a corner. "Steph, I wouldn't tell… I promised you guys I wouldn't do it."

"WOULD YOU JUST STOP LYING TO ME?!" She puts her hands on my shoulders and pushes me…hard. "You're such a liar, Jo! You don't know how to do anything else but lie! You're lying to me! I know you told!"

My back kind of hurts a little bit from the impact to the wall when she pushed me. "…I didn't tell! Steph, please believe me. I didn't tell her… please believe me." _You're scared…. Which is abnormal. You've never been scared before. Every time you've been backed into a wall like this, you've felt fiery… like you wanted to fight. You're scared right now. _"I'm just gonna go…" I try to maneuver my way past her, but she pushes me back into the wall again. "Stoppit! I just wanna go eat my lunch…."

"She doesn't wanna fight, let her go." Leah hops down from her seat on the sinks. "No sense in us beating a dead horse." She looks dead at me. "Unless you want to square off with Steph right now…"

"I don't want to fight." I shake my head. "I just want to leave… I want to talk to you guys about it….but I really just want to leave."

"Not so big and bad now." Lucy rolls her eyes.

_If you fight Steph, you'll really do damage to her. You fight Steph, you do damage. Leah jumps in, you hurt Leah really bad too. Then Heather jumps in, you hurt Heather… and you'll never be friends with them again. Plus, you're horribly outnumbered here. No fighting, Jo… just leave. It's not worth you getting jumped over. _"I thought you guys wanted to talk…" My leg starts to shake, purely out of anxiousness. I just have a feeling that if I don't get out of here, something bad is gonna happen to me. "…Um… Why don't you guys come over later? We can talk… without everybody else." I snivel. "…I would never try to fight you guys… you don't have to bring a whole crew to jump me…"

"Yeah, well you also said that you would never go after Shane, and look what we have here." Leah takes a step towards me.

"And I know that you text Aaron sometimes…" Heather seems more upset than angry.

"…I don't even have Aaron's number! I never… I don't even talk to him." I hold out my phone so she can take it. "Here… check my phone. My… my passcode is 9797. Here… check it. I'm not like that. I'm not… I'm not a man-stealer… I'm not a hoe…"

"You are a hoe… let's not get ahead of ourselves with that one." Steph rolls her eyes.

"How am I a hoe? I had sex with my boyfriend ONCE."

"And two other guys… that you didn't even bother to use a condom with." She rebuttals.

"Better on than in, right?" Heather taunts me.

"…That was one time. Come on, guys…"

"Just let her go…" Leah says again. "She's already crying… let her go."

"Fine. Leave." Heather shrugs.

"…And if you stopped wearing all those push up bras, three pairs of underwear… maybe people's boyfriends wouldn't want your slutty ass." Lucy takes her turn to taunt me. "There's no way your boobs are that big and your butt is that big."

"I don't…." _You don't even have to explain yourself. _"I'm not wearing a push up bra… or three pairs of underwear to make my butt bigger…" I just look at Steph, Heather and Leah. "…I'm just gonna go."

"Now you're gonna lie about wearing push up bras? You stuff your bra then, don't you?" One of Lucy's friends shakes her head. "Is there anything you wouldn't lie about?"

"…Why would I lie about something so stupid? I don't stuff my bra… Why would I lie about that?"

"I don't know, you tell me!" Lucy yells in my face. _I'm not fighting today. I'm not… I'm not fighting. Don't fight. I'm not gonna fight. _"If you're not lying, let's see then." She grabs ahold of my shirt and pulls it up.

"STOP!" I swat her hands away from me, but the other friend that was teasing me with her holds my arms down. Lucy lifts my shirt up so far that my whole upper-half is exposed to everybody in the bathroom with me. My stomach is churning…

"Hey… come on, guys… stop. Leave her alone." Steph's face looks like it's showing some remorse as she taps Lucy on her shoulder.

"Please leave me alone… I just want to go eat lunch… or something… please…" My arms are still being held down and my shirt is still up. I don't think I've cried this hard since the whole Jason thing. I'm so embarrassed… "No… NO, stop it!" Lucy's messing around behind my back and I can tell that she's unstrapping my bra. "Please stop!" I'm going to throw up. I feel it rising up in my throat. My bra is unbuckled and my boobs are literally just hanging out. Laughter fills the bathroom and somebody even has their phone out. "Leave me alone…"

"…MOVE!" Leah pushes Lucy HARD away from me. "Come on, guys… she does NOT deserve this. You don't joke around with something like this!" Leah covers me up with her own hands while Steph works behind me to strap my bra back up. "…Jo, I'm SO sorry… I'm SO sorry…" Behind her, Heather is fighting the girl with the phone to erase the pictures. "Look, we never meant for this to happen… We're sorry… We're sorry…"

"We didn't know… we didn't know Lucy and Elizabeth were gonna do this…" Steph is pulling my shirt back to its normal placement. "We… we… we called you in here to talk… and we thought maybe you'd wanna fight because you have a bad temper, and that's the only reason we told the rest of the squad to come… to make sure you didn't seriously injure us if you wanted to fight. We didn't know… they planned on doing this to you."

"….Get away from me." I stand up with very wobbly legs and hold on to the wall because I can't walk by myself. I need support to walk. Embarrassed doesn't begin to cover how I'm feeling. Embarrassed, humiliated, ashamed, degraded, mortified… I'm gonna throw up. "I wanna go home… I wanna go home… I want to go home…" I stop walking when I reach the exit of the bathroom because nausea just… takes over. I can't even stand upright. "Somebody please take me home… I don't wanna be here…"

Leah puts her arm around me. "Heather, go get Alex and Shane… Tell Shane to call his mom or something… and tell Alex to come over here." She wipes my face. "I'm so sorry, Jo… Look, I know we're in a fight right now, but… I swear we didn't know they were going to do that. And you have every right to be mad at us… you do. But I would've never told you to come to the bathroom if we knew. I'm really, really, really sorry Jo… are you okay?"

"….No." I shake my head. _Of course I'm not okay! They just…they just held me down and stripped me naked in front of half the cheer squad. I'm not okay! _"I don't wanna be here… I swear I wanna die…"

Lexie walks over to us and kneels down next to me. "…I made sure Taylor deleted the pictures. I made sure she did… I'm sorry they did that to you. Nobody knew…"

"...I didn't tell April, Leah. I didn't tell April… I didn't tell her…." I don't want to turn to Leah for comfort, but Alex is taking way too long to get here and I need someone. I bury my face in Leah's chest and just… sob. "I didn't tell and I'm not a hoe and I'm not a man-stealer and I swear I'm not conceited or cocky and I don't stuff my bra and I have on one pair of panties and I'm just… I'm sorry… I'm sorry for calling Steph trashy… but I didn't tell April. I'm loyal…. I'm loyal to you guys… okay? I'm loyal, I swear…."

Steph is having a HEATED argument with Lucy. "NO, SHE DIDN'T DESERVE THAT! YOU SAID YOU WOULD KEEP IT CIVIL. THAT'S NOT CIVIL, LUCY. YOU DON'T STRIP THE GIRL BARE LIKE THAT AND TAKE PICTURES, WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU?"

"That doesn't matter, Jo. Who cares if you told? It's all petty… I'm sorry they did that to you. If I knew…" Leah keeps trying to comfort me. "Keep the principal away from here until we find out if she wants to tell or not…" She barks at Heather.

"Get off her, Murphy." Alex's voice is in my ear now. "Get off her." He sounds like he means business. Shane's hands wrap around my arms. "BACK OFF, ROSS. LEAVE HER ALONE." Alex yells at him. "Are you okay?" He sits down next to me and makes me lie on his chest. "Everyone get away from her. Edwards… Brooks… Murphy… Ross… LEAVE. Everybody just go away!" He rubs my arms and just tries to calm me down. "…What'd they do? What happened in there?"

"…I wanna go home." I mumble. _I would also like to die. I 'm a mixture between wanting to go home and wanting to kill myself. I've never been so… ashamed in my live. Did that really just fucking happen? I swear it seems like it was a movie. It doesn't seem like that happened to me. It seems like… like I just watched that happen in a movie. Did somebody really just hold my arms down while Lucy took my bra off in front of the cheer squad? And did my friends… my ex-friends just watch it? I argued with Steph, Heather and Leah… then my bra came off. I'm so… I disgusted with myself. I can't believe that just happened. I can't believe that. _No, I don't want to go home and I don't want to die.

I want to go talk to Mrs. Who…because she'll be able to find a positive in this situation. I can't see a positive. I don't think I'm making progress anymore…


	44. Blocked

"I guess your day at school didn't go so well?" Her stockings make that same fuzzy noise when she reaches across the table to hand me a small package of travel tissues. I appreciate the gesture of her giving me the tissues, but the truth is that I can't stop melting down long enough to take them from her. I don't know where to even begin with this day. I may sound melodramatic and maybe a little too sensitive, but I swear that today was the worst day of my entire sixteen years of being alive. Today's even worse than when I came home and found out that grammy died. Today is the WORST day of my life and it's not even over yet. "…Your mother told me that you came home from school really upset… and you didn't want to talk about it, so she didn't force you to. But she did say that she wants me to talk to you about whatever it is, because you seemed very upset. What's going on?"

Underneath the table, I slide my hand over to the side of my stomach and slip it up underneath my shirt. I give myself a firm, hard pinch on my hip. _Stop pinching yourself. You already established in the car that you're awake. _Still, I guess maybe I'm hoping that I'll wake myself up. This is all so surreal. I'm still having a tough time believing that this actually happened to me. It happened so fast… and so crazily. I swear I'm dreaming. I have to be dreaming. There's no way that really just happened. What's even stranger to me is the fact that when it happened, all I wanted to do was talk to Mrs. Who about it. But now that I'm actually here, I don't have anything to say about it. How do you explain to your therapist that you've been humiliated, embarrassed, shamed, belittled and let down all in the same day? Which emotion do I even start with?

"Jo… you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to tell me." Instead of waiting for me to take the tissues out of her hand, she just puts them down on the table in front of me. "But that's what I'm here for. I'm here to make sure that you have a safe, private place to express yourself. I'm here for you to tell me anything you want to tell me. I don't judge you and I don't think more or less of you for the things that you say to me. My sole purpose is for you."

_She _might not think anything less of me, but what do I do when I think less of myself? What happens when I'm so ashamed of myself that I don't even know what to do? She's here to make sure that I tell her every little thing that crosses my mind, but if I told her half of the things that crossed my mind today, she'd commit me. Do I tell her that I'm so fed up with everything right now that I was literally _THIS _close to swallowing a handful of my sleeping pills when I got home from school today? She'd have to commit me to psych if I tell her that.

I don't know how, but I managed to stay in school all day. Somehow I pulled myself together long enough to toughen out my last four classes after lunch. I honestly think that the only reason I was able to make it through the rest of the day was because I didn't feel like telling the principal about it, and even more so than that, I didn't feel like listening to what mom would have to say about it. I really, really, really just don't want to talk about it. Heather, Leah and Stephanie spent the rest of the day kissing my ass, but I can honestly say that I wasn't listening to anything they had to say. They mostly kept apologizing and asking if I was okay, but that's all I can even remember.

I even spent the day ignoring Shane. I don't have anything to say to him either. He did try to talk to me, but I seriously wasn't listening. Instead, I went upstairs, locked myself in my bathroom and finished my crying spell from lunch. I've also never come as close to killing myself as I did an hour or so ago. I didn't want it to hurt, so I dumped more than half of the bottle of my sleeping pills in my hand. I held them to my mouth, but I thought about Alex… and how I really didn't want to just leave him here without an explanation. I thought about how he didn't deserve that, about how much I actually do love him, about how…even though everybody else in the entire school hates me right now, he loves me and he'd probably miss me if I did it. I still had the pills to my mouth, but then it crossed my mind that he's worth living for. So I didn't… I almost did…but I didn't.

"Jo? Honey, we only have 45 minutes…" She stands up from the swivel chair at her desk and walks over to my side. "We're running low on time and I really want to speak with you about the court hearing on Saturday…" She grabs one of the tissues from the package and wipes my cheek with it. I respectfully and politely, but still aggressively push her hand away from me. I don't want her to touch me. I know she's technically not even supposed to touch me, but I really just don't want her to at this point. I don't want to be touched anymore today. I want to be left alone. "Look, Josephine." She crosses her arms and scowls at me. "You and I didn't come this far for you to regress over a bad day at school. You didn't make all this progress with me just to shut me out again. I'm not going to sit here and watch you set yourself back all these steps when we came so far together. Now you can either tell me about your day or not… but I'm not letting you leave until you tell me what's bothering you. I have no problem with cancelling my next two appointments just to keep you here. I care about you way too much, little girl."

"…You remember how I told you about how my friends got mad at me because I wanted to tell April her boyfriend cheated on her?" _Oh no… more tears are coming. _I put my hands over my eyes so she doesn't see my ugly crying face and let it all go. My shoulders hunch up and I put my head down on the table in front of me. I can't even talk about it without melting down. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. Ever. I feel so useless and lousy. I can't even stop crying long enough to tell her about it. _I can't stay here. _I stand up from my chair and go over to the door. "I'm sorry… I can't…"

"Jo, no…. you're not running away from this. You run from all your problems, and you're not running from me." She grabs ahold of my hand and gently pulls me back away from the door. "Come on… come sit down and talk to me about it. I'm here to help you, Jo… I'm here to help. Come sit down and talk to me."

I snatch my hand away from her, with no success of actually freeing myself from her grasp. She really won't let go of me. "I don't want to talk about it… please don't… I just want to go home… that's all…" I try snatching away from her again. "Leave me alone!"

"I can't leave you alone, Jo. If I leave you alone, I'm giving up on you. And I'm NOT giving up on you." She pries my fingers off the doorknob and wraps her bony arms around me. She rubs the hair on my arms like grammy used to when I needed to be calmed down and I just lose it when she does that. I start crying so hard that my knees buckle and I have to sit down. Mrs. Who never lets go of me as she sits down on the floor with me in her arms while I crumble into a crying mess of hair, skin and clothes. "It's okay, Jo… it's okay. You can talk to me about it… I'm here for you." Out of pure frustration, I grab a handful of my hair and pull. I really need her to leave me the hell alone. I really need her to just… let me go home. "Stop that… stop…stop that, honey… don't do that." She pulls my hand out of my hair and holds it. Eventually, she brings it up to her mouth and kisses my fingers. She uses one hand to stroke my hair backwards and another hand to hold my hand to her lips.

"…Why are you doing this to me?" As much as I want to pull my hand away from her mouth, I won't… because I must admit, this actually feels pretty good. To be held and stroked and caressed and loved, I mean. "Why won't you just leave me alone?"

"Because I love and care about you. And I'm not giving up on you. I'm not letting you run from everything that you don't feel like talking about. I'm not letting it happen, Jo…" She presses her lips to my temple and keeps kissing my fingers. "You can tell me what happened…"

"You're not supposed to touch me." I try pulling away from her, but her grip is pretty strong.

"I'm not supposed to do a lot of things. I break rules for you, because I love you."

I clear my throat. "…They took my shirt off… and my bra." A quiet tear slides out of my eye but it's okay. I just let it fall. "…They said they wanted to talk to me at lunch…my friends, I mean." I clear my throat again. "They said they wanted to talk to me at lunch, so I went into the bathroom to meet them so we can talk. And I guess… I guess they thought that I was gonna try to fight them, because they brought half the cheerleading squad to make sure things didn't get out of hand. But I didn't want to fight… I would never try to fight my friends, you know?" I finally unhinge my entire body and release the tension in my shoulders so it's more comfortable for her to hold me. "They started yelling at me…" My eyes well up with harsh tears again and they spill over while I'm talking about it. "They were all… it was three against one, and I was… I was scared. I didn't know what to do. So I just… I backed up into the corner and tried to explain, but they wouldn't let me. They just kept yelling and yelling and yelling at me. They wouldn't even let me explain. They assumed that I told April anyway and I really didn't. And they kept calling me names… like bitch, slut, whore… man-stealer. They thought I tried to steal their boyfriends, but… I'm not like that." My tears are falling all over Mrs. Who's arms but she doesn't even care. "I would never do that to them… they're my friends. And they just didn't listen to me. Stephanie was pushing me and like… shoving me into the wall. So I decided that I needed to leave. They didn't even care what I had to say. So I tried to leave. But then Lucy… her and her friends started going off on me too. So I backed into the corner again. They started… they started telling me that I had a push-up bra on… that I stuffed my bra and put on three pairs of underwear to make my butt bigger. I told them that I didn't have a push-up bra and I didn't stuff my bras but they didn't believe me. So they…" My voice gets lower. "They held my arms down so I couldn't move and they unstrapped my bra and lifted my shirt up. So everybody in the bathroom saw me topless and braless and… and I just… I just really wanna die right now, okay?"

"Oh my god." Her voice is about a pitch higher in surprise. "Jo, who did you tell about this? Did you tell somebody? The principal, maybe? The guidance counselor? Did you tell anybody what those girls did to you?"

"…No." I shake my head at her. "…I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to seem like a snitch… and I don't… I mean… I don't want to get Steph and Leah and Heather in trouble. They're sorry. I'm still mad at them, but they're sorry. And… What if we become friends again? Then I would've gotten them in trouble over this and that's not what I want. They didn't know Lucy and her friends were gonna do that to me… and they tried to stop it, I guess. They like… told her to stop and Leah like… covered me up while Steph put my bra back on me. So they're sorry. I don't want to get them in trouble for this."

"Why are you defending them?" She keeps rubbing my hair. "Don't defend them, Jo. They sat there and watched while a couple of girls held you down and stripped you. They're not your friends and you should WANT them to pay for what they did to you. That's… That's BULLYING, Jo. To the highest extent, that's bullying. I've never heard of something so cruel. I knew girls could be catty and jealous and petty, but I've never heard of something like this. I've never heard of girls holding another girl down and stripping her bare. I've never heard of that in my life. You need to tell somebody about what those girls did to you."

"I just really don't want to even mention it anymore. Like…. I just… I don't even know. I can't believe it happened. I don't… I don't have friends anymore. I can't trust anyone. I just can't believe that actually happened. It's like… the whole cheer squad knows what my boobs look like and I'm not okay with that. But like… what can I do about it? If I tell on them… it's not gonna change anything, because they still saw me naked… you know? So I guess I should just keep my distance from them. I think that's basically the only thing I can do at this point." I sniff. "I just want to know why they hate me so much. I've never done anything…at least I don't think I have. Like… okay, I called Steph trashy so that's a reason to be mad at me. But like… Lucy and her friends? I don't know why they hate me. I just wish they'd give me a chance. I could be really nice… and they might actually like me if they got to know me. I mean, I don't think that I'm that terrible of a person. I can be a little bit bitchy, but that's not a reason to hate me. Like… they must REALLY hate me to do that to me. I've never been hated that much…"

"They're most likely just jealous of you, Jo. Jealousy can bring out the worst in people. And it could be that they just don't know how to take you. Some people tend to… pick on and be against people they don't quite understand. Not everybody likes different people. And you're a very different person. You said yourself that the three girls were shocked once they actually got to know you, because you're pretty AND sweet. Some people don't know how to be both, Jo. You actually know how to be a decent person while being completely gorgeous. Just because someone has a pretty face doesn't mean they're a pretty person. Pretty faces happen to ugly people."

"I don't want them to be jealous of me… or whatever. I can't even figure out why they would be. They're the skinny, blonde cheerleaders. I'm the chubby, brunette nerd. I mean, it's usually the other way around, isn't it?"

"….Get up. Come on. Let's get up." She stands up on her feet and helps me up. "You have the poorest self-esteem and I can't…for the life of me, figure out why." She grabs my hand and drags me over to the corner of her room that I've never been in before. It never quite occurred to me that she's a pediatric psychologist. It just dawns on me when I find toys and baby books over in the corner that I've never been in. She puts her hands on my shoulders and makes me stand in front of a pink and yellow body mirror. "I want you to look at yourself, Jo. I want you to stand here in this mirror and look at yourself. And tell me exactly what you see. Tell me what you see when you look at yourself."

I take a step back so I can see my full-length body and stare into the mirror. I see a pink and black Adidas sweatshirt and a pair of black yoga pants. I see a pair of black Nike sneakers and a mound of sloppy, curly, brown hair. I see a big nose, chubby cheeks, eyes that are more brown than they are green today, and full lips that boast a beauty mark beside them. I'm not sure what this is supposed to do, but I still don't think that I'm very pretty. "I… I see me." I shrug my shoulders and look over at her. "What am I supposed to see?"

"You wanna know what I see?" She stands behind me. "I see a beautiful little girl. I see… pretty, hazel eyes. Hair that most people would die for. I don't see a chubby girl. I don't see a chubby girl at all. I see a girl with curvy hips and curvy thighs. I see a girl with the figure of a woman, and not a little girl. But even more so than all the physical things, I see the sweetest little girl that I've ever met. The most mature sixteen year old I've ever come across. A girl that acts like a little princess but has the mannerisms that every lady should have. Someone that cares about others and has so much loyalty that she would even put aside the fact that she was bullied into being naked in a room full of girls just to make sure her friends…no matter how bad they treat her… don't get into trouble. A girl that deserves to think of herself as something more than a chubby brunette nerd."

"…Really? Because all I see is Jo." I sigh and look back into the mirror. "I see Josephine Wilson… that's all."

"You have to learn how to look beyond the mirror."

"…How do I do that?"

"I'm going to teach you how."

* * *

**Thurs, Nov 12, 2013**

**5:24 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **what are you doing?

**5:30 p.m.**

**Me: **alex.

**5:35 p.m.**

**Me: **alexander michael.

**5:37 p.m.**

**Alex: **Josephine Leanne Mckenna. What?

**Me: **why'd it take you forever to text me back?

**Alex: **I'm at football right now babe

**Me: **oh. sorry, i forgot. text me when you get home.

**Alex: **I'm on break. What do u need?

**Me: **nothing i just wanted to talk to you. i miss you :(

**Alex: **I'll cum see u after I'm done here. r u home?

**Me: ***come. ewww lol. but no. i'm at dairy queen with shane bc mom made us go out and have a talk so we can straighten shit out but i don't want to talk to him so i'm texting you.

**Alex: **u knew what I meant lol. & ok u should probly go have fun with ross so u don't get in trouble. U 2 do need 2 work it out bc you guys live 2gethr. coach was wonderin where ross was.

**Me: **yeah mom told him he couldn't go back to football until me and him work things out. but i don't have nothing to say to him and he don't have nothing to say to me. he's on his phone and i am too.

**Alex: **ok. how did ur doctors visit thing go?

**Me: **fine. we talked about school today but that's it. go back to football. dont let me hold you up. just text me later because i really miss you.

**Alex: **I'm still on break babe. I can talk to u for as long as I need 2.

**Me: **yeah but you have a game tomorrow so you need to practice all you can! i'm fine. text me later okay?

**Alex: **ur more important than a game.

**Alex: **speaking of a game, what r u doing after it 2m?

**Me: **nothing that i know of. i think i'm going with april bc she still wants to go and see how jackson does even though they're broken up. i'm going to the game with her then i don't think i'm doing anything after it. why?

**Alex: **you. me. my house, my couch?

**Me: **i'm still on my .

**Alex: **i didn't say anything about sex did i? No. Takeout chicken and a movie? or Hoagies? Which one?

**Me: **you're seriously cool with not having sex tomorrow? & chicken. definitely chicken. though a hoagie does sound good. hmmm.

**Alex: **? why do u think all I want is sex from u? lol no. It wasn't even on my mind tbh. I wasn't even thinking about it. I just want 2 spend time with u. & screw it, why don't we just get both?

**Me: **idk. i just thought it was a big part of relationships. but hell yes. let's get both.

**Alex: **Not a big part of our relationship. Sure the sex is good but I don't care about it Jo. I'd still b with u even if we werent sleeping 2gethr. I just like being around u. I love u.

**Me: **:,) i love you too, alex. & can we cuddle tomorrow? please? :D while we're watching our movie, can we cuddle? i'll come over in my pjs and we can watch a movie and cuddle… okay? please?

**Alex: **ehhhh.

**Me: **please? E, baby?

**Alex: **whatever u want princess.

**Me: **stop that. i'm not a princess. & is that a yes? we can cuddle?

**Alex: **u are a princess. i spoil ur little ass. & yes. it's a yes. we can cuddle tomorrow.

**Me: **yay! i love you so much. & youre actually a really good cuddler. you have big arms and a nice chest.

**Alex: **u have a nice chest too

**Me: **yep. :P what are you doing after football tonight? are you still coming over to see me?

**Alex: **i was gonna bc its over at 6. But u said that ur not home

**Me: **i'll be home by 6.

**Alex: **ok. love u. I g2g now.

**Me: **love you too baby.

* * *

"So are you really not going to talk to me?" Shane leans up and turns the radio off in my car so I can hear him. I shoot him a quick "I hate you" glance and put my eyes back on the road. "Come on, Jo. You really can't blame me for what happened to you in the bathroom. That's not my fault. You brought that on yourself by calling Stephanie trashy. And by refusing to keep your mouth shut."

"Shut up, Shane. You don't know shit, so just stop talking." I turn my radio back on. He should really shut up, because he's missing the entire point of why I'm pissed at him. And I have every right TO BE PISSED AT HIM. He's lucky we live together, otherwise I wouldn't be talking to his ass at all. It's literally taking every ounce of my restraint and self-control not to slap the hell out of him right now. He irritates me just by breathing anymore.

"No, Jo. I'm not gonna shut up." He turns the radio back off again. "You're acting like a baby by ignoring me. You're blaming me for all the problems you're having with your so called friends. You're mad at me because I refuse to stop talking to Leah over something like that. Leah's my girlfriend, Jo. I'm not gonna stop talking to her just because you two had a fall out."

"No, fuck you Shane. Really, sincerely, truly, from the bottom of my heart, FUCK YOU. You're part of the reason that happened to me! And if you can't fucking see that, then you need to go to hell. YOUR GIRLFRIEND THINKS I'M TRYING TO STEAL YOU, BECAUSE YOU DECIDE TO TELL ME YOU'RE FREAKING IN LOVE WITH ME. I'm gonna…" I take a deep breath. "Stop talking to me. I'm gonna wreck my fucking car if you don't stop talking to me."

"So now it's MY FAULT that Leah hates you? You calling Stephanie trashy has nothing to do with it? You being an INCREDIBLY bad friend has nothing to do with it? It's all me, right?"

"I said stop talking to me and that's what I meant. STOP TALKING TO ME."

"No, we're gonna talk about it, Jo. Because you HATE being told when you're wrong, but you're wrong here. Not me. I'm not wrong, Jo. And you're never gonna try to get me to see that I'm wrong, because I'm not. You just want someone to blame for you getting yelled at in the bathroom. But I'm not to blame."

"I'm not trying to blame you, Shane! It's just… HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL? YOU DON'T THINK ABOUT HOW I FEEL." I stop at a red light and turn to look at him for a moment. "THEY DIDN'T JUST YELL AT ME. LEAH… YOUR GIRLFRIEND… SHE… SHE WATCHED, SHANE." For the millionth time today, I start crying. "Two girls… One girl held my HANDS BEHIND MY BACK while Lucy… While Lucy held my shirt up and unstrapped my bra. She WATCHED. I WAS NAKED AND SHE WATCHED. THAT'S THE WHOLE PROBLEM!" I wipe my tears. "…And you… the ONE person I expected to have my back… YOU WERE KISSING HER while I was crying… because SHE WATCHED while two girls held me down and stripped me of my clothes. They didn't just yell at me. I WISH they yelled at me. Because then I wouldn't have to live with the fact that the cheer squad has seen my BOOBS."

"Well how was I supposed to know that they did all that? You didn't tell me all of that, Jo…"

"Yeah, of course you're still not in the wrong. You didn't know, so that all goes away…right? You didn't know… so I'm supposed to just understand that. Damn the fact that the REASON they're pissed at me is because they think I'm a boyfriend stealer. DAMN THE FACT that Leah told me that you told her that I crawled in your bed and TEASED you… fuck all of that, right?" I put my foot on the gas and start going once the light turns green.

"BECAUSE YOU DID, JO. YOU REALLY….REALLY DID." He throws his hands up. "You're being a bitch about this whole thing. I TOLD YOU THAT I LOVE YOU. I TOLD YOU THAT I'VE BEEN ATTRACTED TO YOU EVER SINCE SIXTH GRADE… and you come in my bed and sleep with me? And ask me to hold you? That's TEASING ME, Jo."

"I NEVER ASKED YOU TO HOLD ME! OH MY GOD!"

"YOU DID! RIGHT BEFORE WE FELL ASLEEP, YOU WERE LIKE…. 'Shane…' and I was like 'Yeah?' and you were like 'Will you hold me?' and I told you that it wasn't a good idea, but you INSISTED that I hold you, because you couldn't fall asleep without it. So I held you. You asked me to."

"Well, I don't remember that. And even if I did, it clearly wasn't meant to be in that kind of way. But I don't remember it."

He snickers. "Of course you don't remember. You don't remember anything when it comes to me, do you Jo? You remember your first kiss to a T. You remember losing your virginity behind a pool shed perfectly, don't you? I bet you remember the first time Alex felt you up, huh? But you forget EVERYTHING when it comes to me… just like always. And I'm the only one that remembers everything, but you make me feel like I'm crazy because you act like it never happened."

"…So now you're gonna yell at me because you had some weird little fantasy about what I mean when I do things with you? You're pissed because the… make believe experiences I've had with you are so IRRELEVANT that I don't remember them? I don't remember them, but you do… and somehow that's my fault?"

"How could you NOT remember them, Jo? How could I forget them? How could I forget that YOU were my first for a lot of things?" He's looking dead at me but I'm looking at the road. "…You were my first for a lot of things, Jo… and I'm supposed to just forget? Because you're ashamed of some of the things we've done, I'm supposed to act like they didn't happen? I know you pretend to forget about things because you don't want to talk about them… and I respect that. Some of the things we've done together… I don't want to talk about them either. But when it's just you and me and we both KNOW that these things happened, I'm not gonna act like they didn't…"

"Shut up, Shane." I roll my eyes. "I'm sorry that I don't remember these things… really, I am. Maybe you should try to forget."

"How could I? How could I, when I have to spend my time LYING about it? When a girl asks me… When LEAH asked me who my first kiss was… I had to lie because you don't want to admit that we were each other's first kiss. Same story when she asked me who the first girl I felt up was, the first girl I saw naked, the first girl I ever wanted to fuck, the first girl I fingered… the first girl I did everything with. I have to lie about it every time because I know how much you HATE that we've done things together. But the fact that you seriously act like we've never done anything together… and then you tease me about it… that's a bitch move, Jo."

"…Shane, I seriously don't remember these things! I mean… I don't know. Maybe they did happen…. Because I don't think you could just make up all these stories… and have all these fantasies about me. But I really don't remember. I really don't." I shrug my shoulders at him. "Sorry."

"…How could you forget, though? That's what I'm not understanding. Okay, maybe the first kiss, you could forget. We were five when I kissed you for the first time. The VERY FIRST TIME I kissed you, we were five. You punched me in the stomach for it, but it still happened. But everything else? Everything else was fairly recent. How do you forget things that happened when we were eleven, twelve and thirteen? You don't remember that time you spent the night over my house when we were eleven and we were playing 'house' and Nick and Matt were our pretend kids… and when we fake went to sleep that night, you let me feel you up. You were the first girl I've ever felt up, so I remember that. I was the first guy to have ever felt you up, so I know you should remember."

"Nope."

He rolls his eyes at me. "Okay, how about when we were twelve? And we were watching Scarface and the guy and the girl were doing it? And we both got curious about it and we were in your room and we were trying to go to sleep, but instead, your hands ended up in my pants and I ended up sucking all over your boobs? Those were your first hickeys, so COME ON."

"…Huh uh." I shake my head at him.

"Not even when you found out that I lost my virginity and you were mad at me? Like… you were mad at me for months for it. We were thirteen when you finally started speaking more than three words to me for it." I park my car in the driveway and turn it off. "Come on Jo… you have to remember that. It was like… two months after you found out and you were still mad at me, but you still came down my house to help me babysit my brothers. You were pissed, but you kept asking me what it felt like. So…I don't know, after the boys were sleeping, me and you were kissing and I fingered you. You seriously don't remember that?"

"…No." I shrug my shoulders again. "And if all of this did happen, then I'm sorry for teasing you and it will never happen again. I promise I'll never tease you again. I promise that we'll be strictly friends and nothing that could possibly indicate that we're more than that. I'll never tease you again… and I owe you an apology. I'm sorry if any of my behavior was misleading… really, I am. I'm so sorry, Shane. I didn't even realize that some of the things I've been doing could be taken that way by you. I'm sorry and I'll stop doing it. But you do owe me an apology for selling me out to Leah. You really are part of the reason, you know."

"…Sorry, Jo." He sighs. "I just can't believe you just… blocked out all of those memories." _Oh my god… that's it. I've been blocking… I blocked those. Oh my god, what if those really happened? _"….You really never did like me."

"…No, Shane. I never really did."

"…Well that's enough to make me stop…" He sighs again. "Knowing that I'll never have a chance." He opens the car door. "I'll just focus on Leah from now on….. I don't really think… I don't really…." He turns his nose up at me. "The fact that I'm that unimportant to you? That's… rough. I don't even… feel for you like that right now, Jo. Don't worry about me… because I'm gone." He gets out of the car and slams the door.

My perfect day has just gotten more perfect.

Can you detect sarcasm?

I hope so.

* * *

**A/N: **Hey guys, I'm SO sorry for the long wait for the update. Like I said, I started school last Wednesday and it's been a bit of an adjustment to me, you know... since it's my senior year. I really want to focus so I get into a good college, but I PROMISE I will always try to update at least once a week (usually on Saturdays or Sundays). I don't have school this Monday, so I'll probably get another update to you guys by the end of this weekend. Thanks for being so patient with me.

Sorry that the update was a little bit short, I just really wanted to get it up tonight so you guys didn't think I gave up on you. Lots of people have been PMing me, asking me if the mean Japril fans scared me away lol. No, they haven't and while some of them have ripped my head completely off my body for making Jackson cheat, the Jolex fans are the reason I'm here... so whatever, lol.

P.S. I don't know how long this story's gonna be. I'm going to start winding it down within the next few chapters or so, but right now, it's looking like it'll be about 60, maybe less idk. But I DO have another story in mind, so once this story is done, I will have more Grey's fanfiction for you guys. So far, I have a SLIGHTLY AU idea in mind. They will all be older (residents & attendings, I think) and it will be fairly true to the show. I've been fleshing out an idea for Jo (of course) to be the main character, meaning that it'll be in her Point of View but not entirely. I'm thinking I'll probably dabble in Alex's POV for my next story as well. It'll be a Jolex story of course, with all the other characters in it as fluffers. I'm not gonna give away any of the plot, because it's still not solid and i'm still drafting up an outline... but so far, I'm thinking that it's going to be great... unlike anything i've seen done in Grey's fanfiction. So yeah...

Also, Lucky Me has just reached 20,000 views on Friday. So a big THANK YOU to everyone that's stuck with my story! I appreciate it, and I think we should have a 30 second dance party to celebrate. (I kinda did a serious finger-wag to "Am I Wrong" by Nico & Vinz when I logged on and saw 20,008 views lol). So whatever you're listening to right now, even if it's the TV, have a little dance party for me. :)

Thanks for being patient & I hope you danced it out with me lol

-flawlesspeasant. (Rae)


	45. Friends? Friends

**A/N: **So this chapter is actually VERY short. It's the shortest chapter in this entire story so far. But it's short, because I didn't want to jump to something else because then the chapter would be SUPER long. I want to keep the game and the aftermath of the game (Jo and Alex's date) all in one chapter, and if I would've stuck it all in this chapter, it would've been at least 11k words. So here's a short, sweet chapter & next chapter will be cover the game and Jolex spending time together. This chapter may be short, but it's VERY important and really sweet. So enjoy.

* * *

"So what really went down in that bathroom? I'm hearing all kinds of crazy stories…" I'd be lying if I said I didn't know this was coming. I knew she was going to ask me about the whole bathroom incident. Honestly, I respect her for asking me about it. Most people in school today just assumed stuff about what happened and none of them really asked me face to face about it. I mean, they weren't rude to me or anything like that. They just thought they knew the whole story when they didn't. A lot of people kept coming up to me and asking me if I was okay. I appreciated the gestures, but it's not like I'm going to spill my guts to strangers. I heard rumors going around that I got jumped in the bathroom, which Stephanie put to rest. I heard rumors going around that I got kicked in the stomach. Leah put that one to rest. Someone said that they busted the door down when I was using the bathroom… and Heather shut that down. They've spent all day defending me but I haven't spoken to them. I just don't know what to say.

I sigh hard and roll my eyes in a circle. "This is the last time I'm going to tell this story, okay? I'm tired of talking about it." I drum my fingers along the window button and tap my foot. "Let me start from the top." I clear my throat so I can begin. "I told you how I told Steph that she had no class, right? Well they were still pissed at me about that, and in first period yesterday, Leah gave me a note and asked me if I would meet them in the bathroom at lunch to talk about it." I cough softly into my closed hand. "Well somewhere along the lines, I guess Cristina came up to Steph in school and said something to her about it. Steph and Leah and Heather thought that I told you about the whole Jackson thing. Because of what Cristina came up to Steph and said…so they just assumed that I was the one that told you when in reality, Jackson told you. So they were all pissed at me about it. But I tried to explain to them that it didn't go down like that. I was like… trying to tell them that I wasn't the one that told. That Jackson told. But they weren't hearing any of it… and I don't even know how, but somehow we got off that subject and they started calling me a slut and a whore and a boyfriend stealer and stuff. But—"

"Why would they call you a boyfriend stealer? Whose boyfriend did you try to steal?" She stops at a red light at an intersection and puts her left turn signal on. "I heard that they were calling you a man stealer, but that didn't make sense to me. I didn't think that you would do something like that. That doesn't sound like you."

"…Before I got with Alex, his brother…Aaron, he had a crush on me. And he and Alex were arguing for a long time because of that. They were literally at odds over me. Because I guess Aaron told Alex that he had a crush on a freshman but he didn't specify that the freshman was me so Alex got with me while Aaron still had a crush on me. Well… I was trying to get Aaron off my back, you know? Just so me and Alex could be together without any problems, so I put a word in for Heather because she had a crush on Aaron. Now Aaron and Heather are together and I guess Heather just found out that Aaron had a crush on me. So now she's pissed and thinks that I'm trying to steal Aaron away from her. And then meanwhile, Shane… My best friend and Leah's boyfriend… he just admitted that he has a crush on me too. Like literally, out of nowhere, Shane's all… 'Jo, I'm love with you.' So now I have to deal with Leah thinking that I want Shane. But April…" I sigh and take a breath after ranting so much. "I'm not conceited or anything like that, but… like…. If I REALLY wanted Shane or even Aaron for that matter, I could have them. It's basically like… all I have to do is breakup with Alex and snap my fingers for either one of them. But the whole fact of the matter is that I don't WANT Shane or Aaron. I want Alex and I have Alex… which is why Lucy hates me."

"Lucy's a jealous bitch. Always has been, probably always will be. She treated poor Alex so badly. I mean… She and Alex both treated each other pretty shitty, but she was worse… definitely worse. She would like…hit him. Really hard, too. And like… Alex is a hard ass, but he's actually a real gentleman. Like he's obviously a douche and he can be really hard to deal with sometimes, but he's literally so nice, Jo. And he obviously wasn't going to hit Lucy back or even swat her away or anything like that. He'll like… he'll grip you up and push you against a wall, but he wouldn't hit a girl…. Ever. And Lucy knew that, so she would just hit him like it wasn't anything serious. She'd slap him, punch him, push him… pull his hair. She was literally such a bitch to him. He broke up with her and we all took him out to celebrate. We were so happy."

"….She really used to do all that to my baby?" My lip involuntarily pokes itself out. "I don't feel so bad for kicking her ass now. Alex is my baby…" A smile creeps across my face just talking about him. "That's my baby…I could literally just stare at him all day. He's my little baby." I can't even think about how someone would hit him. He doesn't do anything that warrants being hit. I sigh again and continue my story. "So anyway…. They were all pissed at me and stuff…And I guess we argued for a little but it got redundant so I decided to leave. But when I tried to leave, Steph pushed me into a wall so I couldn't leave without apologizing to them first. Then Lucy and her posse started going at me. They were saying shit like I had a push-up bra on and three pairs of panties to make my butt big…which doesn't make sense, but whatever. I told them that I wasn't wearing a push-up bra, which prompted them to be all… let's see then. And… you know…they thought it was okay to take my bra off and flash everybody just to prove that I had a push-up bra on, which of course… I didn't. So…basically half the cheer squad has seen me naked."

"…Oh my god, they really did all that?" She glances over at me very quickly but puts her eyes back on the road. "Wow. We were like…" She shakes her head. "After Alex came back to the lunch table yesterday when you were in the nurse's office, we kept asking him what was wrong… like what happened and stuff because we all saw you crying pretty hard when he was walking you over to the nurse's office. We kept asking him if you were hurt or whatever but literally told us that it was like… bad. He said it was so bad that he didn't want to tell us. And I agree… that's terrible. They really did that? Like… seriously? Why didn't you kick their asses? Jo, you could take all of those girls."

"There were like… thirteen of them in there. And plus, Steph and Heather and Leah are kind of my friends, so I like… didn't want to hurt them, you know? Because they'd be easy. I'd snap Heather in half like a toothpick, I'd KILL Leah and Steph would be easy too. So I didn't want to hurt them. And plus, they made it clear that they were afraid of me. They brought half the cheer squad as back up. I'd never try to fight my friends, but like… if I did try it, I was so outnumbered, April. They'd all jump me. I could probably take all of those girls one on one, but altogether? They'd kill me. And I'm not even gonna lie. I was so scared in that bathroom. It was crazy, because they were literally ALL against me. I took a step back and I was seriously like… WOAH. They're ALL Anti-Jo… I was defending myself but I was like… getting nowhere. I've never had that happen to me, so I didn't even know what to do. I didn't even know where to start. Because contrary to popular belief… I'm not really a confrontational person, you know? I don't like to fight and I don't know how to argue. So when they were all coming at me, I just… shut down."

"Lexie told us that it was the saddest thing she's ever seen. She wouldn't tell us exactly what happened to you in there, but she just came over and she was all torn up about it. She was all shaking and crying about it. She was just like… 'That was the saddest thing I've ever seen in my life' and she started crying so hard that Mer had to take her to a corner and calm her down. She didn't tell us much, but she started breaking down when she started telling us that you kept trying to leave but they wouldn't let you. She said you were like 'Stop it!' when Stephanie was pushing you into a corner when you were trying to leave. She said they kept hitting you while you were trying to leave, so that's why we all assumed that they jumped you."

"…If she was so damn torn up about it, why didn't she help me? I mean…. I respect the fact that she felt bad enough to cry over it, but why didn't she help me?!" My jaw starts trembling but I refuse to cry. "April…_nobody _helped me." My voice is starting to crack. "I was literally… against a freaking wall. They pushed me into a wall then waited until I tried to leave again. Then… one of Lucy's friends stood behind me and held my hands behind my back. I couldn't… move. I thought I was strong, but no… that girl that was holding my hands behind my back was STRONG. I was like… flinging my head forward so that maybe my hair would cover my chest or something, but it didn't work. Lucy held my shirt up and unstrapped my bra. I was NAKED and nobody helped me. They watched… like they all wanted to see what I was hiding underneath my shirt or something. Like they never seen a pair of boobs before and mine were an open opportunity. They watched… nobody helped. And I just keep thinking… like… what if they had decided to pull my pants down instead? What if they tried to strip me completely naked? Would somebody have helped? What if they would've acted on the whole 'three pairs of underwear' claim?"

"I know me saying this has no meaning to you, because it already happened… but please believe that if I had known what they were doing to you, I would've helped. I would've came in there and… shit would've hit the fan. That's just pathetic. You're a baby and they're picking on you. I would… not saying that I condone anything, but I probably wouldn't be so upset if it was just Stephanie and Leah and Heather that were picking on you. But it's crossing the line when older girls are starting to bully you. They took that to a totally different level yesterday. And believe me when I say that if I knew what was going on, I really would've… I would've done something about it, Jo. That was wrong… totally wrong." She takes one hand off the steering wheel and offers it to me. I reluctantly slide my hand inside hers and she squeezes it. "Are you okay though? Like… emotionally?"

"Honestly? No." I shake my head. "I mean… I'm dealing with it. I like… I'm okay with it but I couldn't stop crying yesterday. I'm… coping. I can't do anything about it because it happened and it's in the past but I'm literally… not okay. I'm not okay that they would even think to do something like that. I…" _How much do you trust April? _"I had a nightmare about it last night, Ape. It was all happening again in my dream and I was literally shaking when I woke up. I just feel like… I really need to stop being forced to do things. Because I'm not cool with that. I get over one thing and then I'm forced to do another and it's really starting to freak me out. It's almost like I was never over one thing and I'm dished out another and it's just really starting to catch up to me." I take a deep breath. "Like what those girls did wasn't nearly as bad as what Jason did but it still took me back to that place and I was back in my bedroom again and he was all over me and my chest was caving in and I literally couldn't breathe. I felt like I was getting raped all over again and I didn't know it was possible for me to feel that way again, but there I was… in the middle of the bathroom, topless in a room full of girls laughing at me and it's like they were raping me in their own way and I'm just… not okay."

"Wait, you were raped?" I know that we're nowhere near where we need to be, because we just started driving not too long ago and the game is an hour and a half away this week, but she still starts slowing down. "Is that what you said? Or… am I just going crazy?"

"…I thought I told you. Maybe not." I shrug my shoulders. It's crazy how freely I'm able to talk about it. I don't know, maybe it's just the fact that it's April I'm talking to that makes it so easy. "But yeah, that's why I came back to Garfield. It's all just been going on and on and on and on and on and on and I'm just… wow. I'm starting to buckle. I'm only one kid, you know? I'm dealing with being bullied, I guess… and raped and confused and my gram's gone and I'm just like… DAMN. You know? How much can one kid handle?"

"I hear you, Jo. I hear you." She looks like she's still hung up on the whole rape thing. But here's the thing about April: She gets me. She understands completely what I mean when I skim over something. And because she gets me, she doesn't even dwell on it. "I'm starting to feel that way too. I mean, obviously it's not as intense for me as it is for you, but I'm starting to feel like that too. Like with Jackson and stuff." She sighs and I can tell that she's really not doing well either, just by that little sigh. "I'm in love with him, you know? And it's just like… blah. I love him, but he did all that. So I don't want to love him, but I do. And I've been thinking about it, and I'm just like… what am I mad for? I don't have a reason to be mad at him… but I am."

"You do too have a reason, April. He cheated on you, didn't he? That's reason enough to hate his guts."

"But… in all technicality, he didn't. I mean, he DID cheat, but in the same token… he didn't. It depends on how you look at it, you know?" She makes a sharp right turn. "Look, you're the only person that knows any of whatever I'm about to tell you, so don't repeat anything…okay?" I nod at her like I mean it. "Me and Jackson have been together since sophomore year… and we JUST started having sex this year. I'm… I believe in waiting for marriage, but whatever, you know? Shit happens. I had a moment of weakness and that all went to hell. So we just started having sex this year. And a couple weeks ago, I had a serious pregnancy scare. A SERIOUS one, Jo. I didn't have my period for a whole week. It skipped A WEEK. So after the pregnancy scare, I wanted to stop having sex. But Jackson… he like… he doesn't think that we have to stop having sex altogether, but I want to. I don't want to do it AT ALL anymore and he thinks I'm being neurotic. So we had a big fight about that and we kind of broke up, but not really. It was like… we took a break, but we BOTH knew that we weren't single. He knew he wasn't single and I knew I wasn't single but we WEREN'T together. So I guess he was upset, which is why he went out drinking at Steph's sister's party… and that's when it happened."

"…Damn. That's a tough situation, Ape." I run my fingers through my hair. "If it were me and Alex going through that, I think I'd still be pissed at him. But I'd forgive him, I think. Because… I kind of cheated on him. I didn't have sex with anybody else, but I did kiss another boy. And he forgave me. He forgave me and he's been my baby ever since. I get that it's not the same concept, because he DID have sex with Steph… but like… he's obviously sorry. And I don't think Jackson would do that if he were in his right state of mind… you know?"

"And you're probably right, Jo. You're probably right. I don't think he'd do it if he was in his right state of mind, either. But he still did it and it hurts. And I need a minute to get over it. I love Jackson with all my heart, which is why it sucks so bad. It sucks that I love him and he hurt me. I'm hurt, Jo."

"And you have every right to be. But I'm just saying, he seems really sorry about it. I'm not trying to make any excuses for him, because cheating is a total dick move, but I'm saying that I don't think you should completely give up on him. I think you need to work things out with him, because it's clear that you two love each other. …You're driving nearly two hours away to watch him play in a football game. That's love." I giggle.

She laughs too. "Shut up, Jo. You know how you said that Alex is your baby?" She winks at me. "Well Jackson's mine. I'd do anything for that stupid boy. I'd do anything in this world for him. I love him so much. But I just need a moment."

"You're entitled to your moment." I look out the window and see that we're still not even close. "…April?"

"Huh?"

"I love you. As a friend, I mean." I nervously tuck my hair behind my ear. "I mean, I think I've been kind of blind to it. I really don't want to get too close to seniors because you guys are leaving pretty soon, but it's true. I love you. And you're the only friend that's been good to me. Obviously… we can't really be friends like you're friends with Mer and Cristina, but still… I really wish we could be."

She completely turns her face up at me. "What do you mean we can't be friends like I'm friends with Meredith and Cristina?"

"…Obviously I can't sleepover at your house and you can't sleepover mine. And I can't come tag along and have fun with you… and we can't really do things together all like that. But I still appreciate how nice you've been to me."

"Why can't we be friends, Jo? What's wrong with us being friends?"

"…You're a senior, I'm a freshman… we have totally different interests. You guys are old enough to do things that freshmen can't…. you know?"

"You're not making any sense to me right now, Jojo. Why can't we have sleepovers? Why can't you tag along with me and Mer and Cristina? And even if you can't, that doesn't mean that I can't hang out with you. We can have sleepovers and movie dates and dinner dates and girl's nights. Just because you're a freshman doesn't mean that I'll ever exclude you. You're awesome… and I love you too. You're like my little baby sister. Would it make you feel better if I started inviting you over? Would that make you feel like more of my friend?"

"…Kind of." I shrug. "I don't know, I just assumed that you're into things that I can't get into. Like drinking and stuff… I know what Alex and his buddies do without me, and I really wouldn't fit in with that. Not that I don't drink, because I have. And I've smoked weed and stuff like that, but I just didn't want it to be weird if I'm a freshman hanging out with all these seniors and college kids…"

"That wouldn't be weird, Jo. Me, Mer, Cristina and the rest of us? We do drink and yeah, if somebody has pot, we'll smoke it. But that doesn't mean that it has to be that way all the time. To be honest, I'd rather spend a Saturday in the house curled up watching a movie. I do like to let loose with my girls, but I'd rather be in the house. And I mean… I kind of like you just a little more than Mer and Cristina. Not that I like you better or anything, I just feel like I mesh with you better than them. We like a lot of the same things. If I were a freshman, you'd be my bestie. Why can't we be besties regardless?"

"…You'd be my bestie?"

"Totally. You're a cool kid. I forget that you're a freshie sometimes. You don't act like one. Your mindset is totally different. I'm just saying… I get it if you want to be friends with kids your own age. But you're kind of my best friend. We don't talk much, but when we do talk, I really relate to you."

"We can seriously be best friends? Because you've been so nice to me. And… when I think about a friend, I really do think about you. I just… haven't talked to you much because I didn't think I could." I shrug my shoulders again.

"You should sleepover my house tomorrow night… deal?"

"Mhm."


	46. Straightening Out To Do

"What happened to Nico? Why's Jackson QBing tonight?" I cross my legs and turn to April, expecting her to know the answer. I mean, why wouldn't she know? She's like…the biggest football fan I know. She knows everything about the football players. She even knows more than the cheerleaders, which is saying a lot. While April noisily chomps on a nacho before answering my question, my foot starts tapping rhythmically to the tune playing over the fancy loudspeakers. I'm not even sure where we're at. We're at some rich school on the other end of Seattle that I don't know the name of. To match the tapping of my foot, I start humming along to the tune too. _Hit me with your best shot. Why don't you hit me with your best shot? Hit me with your best shot. Fire away._ "April. Why's Jackson quarterbacking tonight?" I ask again.

She licks cheese from the corner of her mouth and wipes the other corner with her thumb. "Because…" I hear her swallow, which is gross. She picks up her bottle of Mountain Dew and unscrews the cap. "They're playing on turf instead of real grass tonight and Jackson's better on turf than Nico is. They're all super nervous to be playing on turf, but I guess Jackson's cool with it." She turns the bottle of soda up to her mouth and takes a long, drowned out sip. "Our boys don't play on turf, so they're not used to it. But Jackson's been practicing on turf all week and he's better with it than Nico is… so I guess they just swapped them out for the night. Is it bad that I'm nervous and he's not even my boyfriend?"

"No… 'cause he's still your babe." I reach over and take one of her nacho chips. I break it in half and take a bite of the smaller. "Everybody basically already knows that he's off limits. It's weird because you guys aren't even together but everybody just assumes that you are. It's like you guys are both each other's property." I chuckle and look down on the field just as the boys are setting up for the first play of the game. "Is it bad that I kind of hope we lose? I'm tired of freezing my ass off on Fridays waiting for my boyfriend when I could be in his bed cuddling with him or something. I hope we lose."

"But it'd be pretty neat to see us go to the championship next week, wouldn't it?" She offers me another nacho and I take it. "I get what you mean, though. This whole football thing is a drag. But as soon as football's done and over with, basketball starts." She rolls her eyes. "And it's senior year, so of course Jackson wants to play basketball too. So that's a whole different set of practices he'll be ditching me for."

"…But you guys aren't together, remember?" I wink at her. "I might just bully Alex into not playing. He can play baseball and he can wrestle, I don't care about that. But basketball is too soon. I want to have him to myself on weekdays… is that selfish?"

"Just a little bit, yeah." She laughs at me. "It's bad because when basketball starts, Jackson and I will be on two totally different schedules. With swimming and basketball and stuff… they're opposite each other and swim meets and basketball games are usually on the same days. It's annoying."

"You're on the swim team?" I poke my lip out. "I wish I was athletic. I have the athletic ability of a turtle."

"You've never played any sport before in your life?"

"When I was a baby, my gram put me in gymnastics because I had a lot of energy but I was too fat to lift myself up off the ground so I gave up. Then I played soccer but soccer and anger issues don't mesh very well so I gave that up too. And I'm so unathletic that it's terrible. I can't do anything."

"Why don't you sign up for something? The only thing we have tryouts for is the cheerleading squad, and you definitely don't want to do that. So sign up for something."

"Something like what, April? I'm not a fast runner, so I can't do track. I don't like to run, so soccer is a big no. I don't even know how to begin to dribble a basketball. I think golf is boring. Tennis? Yeah right. I don't know how to swim…"

"You don't know how to swim?"

"…No. I mean, if I was drowning or if a shark was chasing me, I could swim to save myself. But I never properly learned." I scratch my head. "That's another thing that I couldn't do. My gram signed me up for swim classes down at the YMCA but it never worked out. I was scared to death when the dude took off my floaties and he promised that he wouldn't let me go, but he did let me go so I bit him." I shrug. "I'm not good at anything, April. And I'm not joking. I'm not good at anything."

"You've seriously never done ANY other sport?"

I shake my head. "…Unless you count beauty pageants as sports. I did four of them when I was three and four but again… that didn't work out. I don't really do dresses." I shrug again.

"You were a pageant girl?" Her eyes bug out of her head. "Awww…. Oh my gosh. I always wanted to do things like that, but I was an ugly child so I couldn't really get into things like that. Do you remember anything about them? Were they fun for you? Did you wear little crowns and stuff?"

"…I hated it, April. I hated it and my grandmother hated it too." Pageants are actually something that I didn't block out. I remember doing them when I was little and I remember hating them and screaming to the high heavens when they put me in those frilly pink dresses. "My grandma's best friend, Miss Patty, she directed them. She was like… the person that organizes them and stuff. And she was always telling my gram that I was gorgeous enough to be in them, so my gram put me in one but Miss Patty did everything. She bought the dress, did my hair, did my makeup and taught me how to walk and all that bullcrap. I think the only reason I didn't hit her was because she was my gram's friend and I knew her."

"But you're pretty now, so you must've been pretty as a little kid too, right? Did you ever win?" She's really into this whole "pageant girl" thing and I'm like… disgusted by it. I think it's harsh to stuff a child in a dress that she hates, jack her hair up to the high heavens, force makeup on her face and parade her around in front of judges when she hates it. It's a sick thing.

"I guess." I shrug my shoulders at her. "I mean, I have a couple crowns and sashes in the back of my closet from it but I don't think I was ever the best at it. It really wasn't what it cracked up to be. I was stuck in a fluffy pink dress and paraded around on stage until my grandmother decided she hated it. My gram…she was never really into the whole idea from the start, but she tried it out anyway. She hated it just as much, if not more than I did."

"If she hated it so much, why'd she even make you do it in the first place? I can't imagine putting my kid through something that the both of us hate. The only thing I can think of is if it's beneficial to my kid. Like me and my mom both hated going to my physical therapist, but it was beneficial to me so we did it anyway. The whole beauty pageant thing just seems really cruel to me." She takes another sip of her drink and fixes a loose strand of her hair. "I went through years of physical therapy to correct my pigeon toes, but that was only to help me… you know?"

I drum my fingers along my kneecap and swing my foot. "My gram didn't always know that she hated it, I guess." I scratch my knee through the hole of my jeans and sigh. "She thought it was a good idea at first because she already loved dressing me up like I was her personal Barbie doll. It wasn't until her friend started caking makeup and fake eyelashes and spray tanner and fake hair on my body that she realized it wasn't a good idea. I distinctly remember my gram walking out of the room when they started spray tanning me. She actually cried, Ape. She cried. I won a pretty big prize for "Most Beautiful" or something like that, which made her a little more lenient with putting me in three more. I did four before she realized she didn't want to put me through that anymore."

"The spray tan really sent her over the edge, eh?" She nudges me with her elbow and giggles slightly.

"It was like a mixture of everything. She didn't want me to have fake hair clipped in because I already had enough hair on my head. My gram was one of those people that loved me so much that she didn't want to see me cry. So when I was crying when the fake eyelashes went on, she was really upset. Then the spray tan came and she was just done. She was pissed about the spray tan because she thought they tanned me too dark and I looked like a mixed child… because I was really dark when I was a baby. I was like… Jackson's skin tone when I was little…maybe just a little darker. I spent the better half of my childhood wondering if my real dad was black. I could've passed for Shane's actual sister when I was younger."

"Ugh. You're literally so lucky, Jo." She rolls her eyes up to the sky. "I would kill to have dark hair and dark skin. We should switch genes."

"April, you're like…the prettiest ginger I've ever met. You should just be thanking the lord that you're not ugly. Because gingers can either be really ugly or really pretty and you just so happened to be the pretty one. There aren't very many pretty gingers. And you're gorgeous." I reach out with my left hand and touch a strand of her bouncy, curly, red-orange hair. "You kind of remind me of the little mermaid."

"You're adorable, Jo." She wraps her arm around my shoulder and pulls me closer to her into a hug. "If the whole Alex thing doesn't work out, you and I can date, because you're just adorable. Either that, or I want to adopt you. Even if you're like… 21 and I'm 25. I still want to adopt you. You're so cute." She rubs her hand along my arm. "I think you warrant a nickname at this point. What do you want me to call you?"

"…Jo? I mean… I don't know." I shrug my shoulders and eventually bring my arm up to reciprocate her hug. "Jo's a nickname in itself, I think. It's not really my name, so it's a nickname isn't it?" I brush my teeth along my bottom lip. "Or you can just call me Jojo. I have tons of nicknames."

"Jo's not your name?" She looks at me with wide-eyed wonder.

I shake my head. "Nope. It's Josephine."

"…Seriously? I would've never guessed. Alex told us at the table one day that Jo wasn't your real name but I thought he was bullshitting because that's the name you have in the yearbook. You kind of look like a Joelle. If I had to guess, I'd guess your name is Joelle. Or even a Jolene… now that you say something, I guess you kind of do look like a Josephine."

I nod my head. "Yep. Full name's Josephine. Mouthful, so feel free to call me Jo or Jojo… or Josie, J, Jays… anything else you can think of, as long as it's not "bitch" or anything like that. Ooh, and don't call me 'Phiney' Like… Josephine, without the Jose and with a Y at the end? No. Shane did that once and he hasn't since. Just don't do that."

"Can I call you 'Joey'?"

_Nobody but grammy ever called me "Joey". I was always…hers, you know? I was always "her Joey" and nobody else ever called me that. I've never allowed anybody else to call me that. But…it's April. So could that possibly be okay? I don't know… I don't know if I'm ready for somebody else to call me Joey. _ "…Yeah, I guess that's okay. You can call me that."

**x x x**

"Ape, it looks like we might get our wish." I say to her with a slight happy squeal in my voice and a glance at the scoreboard that reads **45-17 **at halftime. We're down pretty bad, and while I'm sad that Alex is going to be upset with the loss, I can't help but be happy that we might lose. "I'm such a terrible girlfriend."

"You are a little bit shitty for wishing we'd lose." She laughs. "I hope we lose to though, so fingers crossed." She stands up and stretches out her back. "I'm gonna go to the bathroom…you coming?"

"No, I'll sit here and keep our seats…I don't have to pee." From the corner of my eye, I see the cheerleaders in their purple and white uniforms walking off the field and up the steps. "You'd better go quickly before you get stuck waiting for them to get outta the bathrooms." As I notice a trio of purple uniforms weaving their way through the bleachers towards the spot I'm sitting at, I turn my head to ignore them. _Is it cowardly that you're trying to ignore them? Or do you have a legit reason to?_

April's eyes pan to the spaces behind me and she raises her brows. I act like I don't know what she's making facial expressions at, but I clearly do. I even hear footsteps nearing me through the crowd's cheering for the band's halftime performance. The hair on my arms stand up as I feel dead weight collapse down on the bleachers beside me and someone sits down in front of me. April sits back down on the other side of me and leans over to whisper in my ear. "Just come to the bathroom with me anyway."

"Hey, Jo…" Leah's voice in my ear gives me chills. I feel like I could cry right here, right now…but I won't. I won't cry in front of them this time. "It's us…" Her voice sounds hoarse, probably from cheering so loudly. _I know who you are, idiot. Why won't you let me ignore you? _"We wanna talk to you…" _Where have I heard that before?_

"If you're still mad at us, it's cool… you don't have to talk. We'll do the talking." Heather puts her hand on my shoulder and I snatch away. _Don't touch me. It's bad enough that you're talking to me…and you have the audacity to TOUCH me? _She moves her hand gently. "Sorry." She whispers to me.

"You could at least look at us…" Steph leans forward from the spot she's sitting at in front of me, in an attempt to get me to look at her. _DON'T make it seem like I owe you that. I don't owe the three of you anything. If I don't want to look at you, I don't have to look at you. _I'm thinking all of these things, but I won't dare say them aloud. They have way too much power over me at this point. They could probably make that entire bathroom scene happen again if they wanted to. I turn my body just slightly but I still don't look at any of them. I look down at my hands, which are folded in my lap.

"Can we talk to you? Without….spectators?" Leah asks, referring to April. _Again, where have I heard that before? Can we talk? Without everyone else around? Sounds all too familiar. Why should I give them that respect when they couldn't even give me that DECENCY? _

"I'm not leaving unless Jo wants me to." April touches my arm which in turn, makes the little bit of hair that was standing up on my arms due to the chills, lay down.

"Cool it, Little Red." Leah snaps back at her. "We're not gonna hurt her. We know Jo just as well as you do, if not better. And she knows that we're not gonna do anything to her. You can leave for five freaking minutes. We're her friends too."

"Friends? Oh yeah, because friends let their friends get sexually harassed in bathrooms without doing anything about it. Jo doesn't need enemies with friends like you guys." _Why is everybody just talking about Jo as if Jo's not right here? And why are people fighting over her? Why does everyone assume that they know what Jo wants and what Jo needs? Jo doesn't even know what she wants at this point. Jo wants to go home, she thinks. Jo doesn't even know. _

"Jo, we just want to talk to you…on a personal level." Heather prods me again. "And we'd feel better about doing that if your new friend wasn't here listening to everything we have to say. We're not going to hurt you…and you know that. So even though you're clearly still pissed at us, we'd really like it if you would let us talk to you one on one…err…one on three."

"…April, you can go ahead to the bathroom." I whisper to her. "I'll be okay here."

"Okay. Just… yell for help or something if they try anything…" She stands up again. "I'll be right back." Still looking down, I nod my head and sweep my hair back. I don't think I'm going to cry in front of them, but just in case I do, I'm not picking my head up. I don't want them to see me cry again. April slowly walks away from me and goes off to the bathroom. No sooner than she got up does Heather spring over and take her seat. Heather's sitting to my left and Leah's sitting to my right. Stephanie's sitting on the bleacher in front of me and I've never felt so surrounded, claustrophobic and uncomfortable in my life. If they actually do try something, the only way I could run is backwards and that's so much harder than running forward. They've got me cornered… again.

"…So you came here with April?" Steph sounds a little pissed, but it seems like she's genuinely trying to hide it. I slowly nod my head and play with the fabric of my hoodie. "…We were talking for a really long time today, Jo…Me, Leah and Heather, I mean." She starts. "And we just… we really just want to say sorry to you. Me, especially." She clears her throat. "While we were talking about it, I started to cry when I realized how… _sad _it was that you tried to leave…but we wouldn't let you. And if we…_I…_if _I _would have let you leave when you asked to leave, none of that probably would have happened. So I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for not letting you get out of there. I feel really sorry for that, Jo. Really, I do. From the bottom of my heart, I'm sorry for that. If it's any consolidation to you, I still can't… get your face out of my head from when I did that. You were really scared…I could see that in your eyes, but I was still being a bitch about it. I knew you were scared but I still acted like a bitch. And I'm sorry."

I reach up and swat away one single tear just as Heather starts to talk. "I'm sorry for accusing you of trying to take Aaron." She scoots closer to me, which doesn't really sit well with me but I let it go anyway. "Again, while we were talking today, I kind of…realized that even if you were trying to take Aaron, it wouldn't be your fault, really. Because I guess…if he's the one that had the crush on you, that's not really your fault. And I should be more secure in my relationship. So I'm sorry. I'm REALLY sorry and I hope you can forgive me…forgive us. Because we really do miss you…you know?"

"What we're trying to say is that we were all bigger bitches than we even knew at that point. We were all wrong in our own ways. And we're all truly sorry. You know…" Leah clears her throat. "You know how…when you do something wrong and your mom makes you apologize for it? Well this isn't like that. We're all TRULY sorry for that. I mean… it's not our fault that Lucy and Elizabeth went that far, but in the same sense…it kind of is our fault. Because we're the ones that called you in there. So even though we didn't do it, we're still apologizing on their behalf…because it technically is our fault that it happened. And we should've stopped it way sooner. We should've stopped it when they started centering in on you. We're sorry… and you didn't deserve that. You didn't deserve that, Jo… you didn't."

"No…. you didn't deserve that." Steph touches my kneecap. "I don't care what you did to us… or what we THOUGHT you did to us… you didn't deserve that. And I guess… I guess the reason why we didn't do anything… or at least why I didn't do anything sooner was because I was so… shocked. I never thought that they were going to take it that far. I never did. And if I knew, I swear to God that I wouldn't have ever let you come in there. I was so shocked. I didn't even know what was happening for a second there. I like… put two and two together. I was like… oh god, they're taking her clothes off. But I was like… are they really doing this? I know that's not an excuse… but I swear I would've never let that happen if I knew."

"Me either." Leah chimes in. "Especially when we already know how you are. I literally felt like I was watching them murder a baby. I mean, you're already like… a super private person. And we knew that. It took you forever to actually start talking crazy with us because you're so private and shy and reserved. So when they did that, I was like… this is horrible for her. I felt like I just witnessed a murder."

"And we don't really think you're a bitch, by the way." Heather pops in the conversation. "I'm not even sure what else to apologize for at this point, Jo. Everything that went on in that bathroom was just wrong on our part. Every single thing that happened in there was shitty. Can I hug you? I feel so bad…"

"Don't touch me." I whisper and keep my head down. I'm crying my eyes out but my head is still down, so I'm trying to conceal it. I don't think I'm doing a good job of concealing it though, because I'm watching the tears roll off my cheeks, down to my chin and dripping off onto my lap. "I…" _Don't try to talk… _My voice cracks but I do a pretty okay job at keeping myself together. "I tried to tell you guys… you…you wouldn't eve…even lemme talk… I…I… I thou…thought you guys were my…my friends bu…but you guys we…were so mean to me. Y…You m…made so…so many assumptions about me…without even asking me." My words are coming out all chopped because I'm crying so hard that I can't stop hiccupping. "A…and I didn't m…mean to call S….Steph trashy, I'm sorry for that. But…you…wouldn't e…even let me explain. I trusted you guys…"

"We were bad friends, Jo. It's just…" Steph sounds like she might be crying but I wouldn't know for sure because I refuse to look at her. "It's always been just me, Leah and Heather. It's just hard for us to let somebody else into the group and trust you right away. So we were just really bad friends to you. And we're also not used to your personality." She rubs my kneecap in order to comfort me but it doesn't work. "You're just… you're so nice, Jo." She sighs. "You're so nice. You're really shy and you're all sweet and cute and we're not used to that…you know? You're such a nice, sweet, caring person that we don't know how to handle that. Because basically everyone on the cheer squad is a bunch of bitches, so we just assume… you know? It's hard to believe that you really are as nice as you are."

"And you're freaking model-material pretty so that's just another slash. Usually, pretty girls are bitches. It's not fair that we made those assumptions… it's really not. We're so sorry. For everything that happened in the bathroom, we're sorry. FOR EVERYTHING. Sorry for letting them do that to you, sorry for… BULLYING you… sorry for putting all your business out there." Leah tries to hug me but it doesn't take her long to remember that I don't want to be touched. "And I know… I know it's probably gonna take you a long time to even want to be our friend again, but just know that we really do miss you. We were hanging out last night and it just wasn't the same without your crazy ass. It was weird, because we all noticed at the same time. We ordered four boxes of Lo Mein instead of three…. We just looked at each other and we were like… 'We have to get our Jojo back.'"

"But if we lost you to April, we understand that too." Heather wipes my face with her hand and I pull away again. "She was nice to you when we weren't. And I know that if it were me, I wouldn't forgive us. I would hate our guts. But we just wanted you to know that we're all so sorry and that we really miss having you around. It's not the same without you. You were always the nice one in our group and we miss that. We're kinda… lost without you anymore."

"Yeah." Steph nods. "…We totally understand if you don't come back… but we really do want our Jojo back. We miss you." Even though I CLEARLY told them not to touch me, Steph keeps rubbing my knee, Leah's head is on my shoulder and Heather is wiping my tears. "Do you even want to be our friend anymore?"

"…No." I finally stopped crying long enough to get a word in clearly. "I mean, yes… but no. Not right now." I swat Heather's hands away and wipe my own face. "I miss you guys too. I miss hanging around with you guys and I miss knowing that I could talk to you guys about anything. But I can't do that anymore. And I don't want to be your friend yet. I'm not even gonna lie to you guys." _After everything they put you through, you still think you owe it to them to be honest with them_? No…I'm just a more decent person than they have shown to be. "I'm not gonna lie. I'm NOT okay. I'm really not. I… I had a freaking nightmare about it. I'm not okay with what happened… and I'm not okay with knowing that my BEST friends were in there when it happened." I bite my lip. "But… I mean, I guess you guys don't have to worry about anything else. I'm not…. I haven't told the principal about it and I'm not going to tell. I haven't told anybody… like an authority. I haven't told anybody that could get everyone in trouble. I'm not going to tell. I don't want to get you guys suspended or expelled or whatever might happen to you guys. I don't want you to get in trouble, so I'm not going to tell. So don't worry about that. But as far as being your friend goes…" I clear my throat and finally lift my head up. "I would like to be you guys' friend again. But not…. not right now. I still want some time to myself. I have April and I have Alex and those are all the people I want right now."

"…Would you want to be our friend tomorrow?" Leah nudges me with her elbow. "…My birthday's next weekend but my mom wants to celebrate this weekend because she has to work next weekend. So we're all going down to Benihana for dinner tomorrow…. you're always invited, you know…"

"I have plans tomorrow. I have a court hearing tomorrow morning and then I'm staying over April's."

"…What time do you have to be at April's? I'm sorry for intruding, but I just really want you to be there. Obviously you don't have to go if you don't want to… but I really want you to come with us. I feel like we at least owe it to you to take you to dinner. And it's BENIHANA. You know… the Japanese place where they cook the food on the grill in front of your face? You don't have to come. But I'd like for you to. If you change your mind, we're leaving tomorrow around 4:30…"

"…I'll think about it." I put my thumb in my mouth and gnaw on my fingernail. "I'll text you tomorrow."

* * *

**A/N: **I know I promised some Jolex in this chapter, but it's literally 1:14 a.m. & I'm EXHAUSTED. I could just not update until later tomorrow after I've written the Jolex, but I really wanted to get the update up tonight so you guys didn't think I've forgotten about you. I do promise that I won't make you guys wait a whole week for the next update though. I've settled in to my school schedule pretty nicely, so I have an idea of how much time I have to write. I won't wait another week to update. The next chapter WILL DEFINITELY have Jolex (It'll start out with Jolex) and I'll make it cover the court hearing, most likely. Hope you guys appreciate the shitty update though.


	47. Never Again

**A/N: **I know the last time I wrote a chapter like the one you're about to read, A LOT of people were begging me for more details. So I got as detailed as possible, without getting too, too in depth. Next chapter will COMPLETELY be about the court hearing. The entire chapter will be court hearing stuff. So with all that being said, this chapter is very **M **rated.

* * *

"Where am I dropping you off at, Jo?" We're not even close to being back into Central District, so I'm not exactly sure why she's already asking me where I'm going, but maybe there's some logic behind it or something. "Am I taking you home to change first or am I dropping you off over at Alex's?" Okay, now I think I see her logic. I think she's asking me if I want to go home first because the both of us are soaking wet. It started pouring down raining midway through the fourth quarter of the game and both April and I are still dripping wet. I wouldn't even be that bad off if my hair wasn't dripping down my back.

"You can drop me off at the school, actually." I lean forward and put my freezing cold hand against the vent in April's car. "After the bus drops the boys off at the stadium, Alex is just going to take me back to his place in his car. So drop me off at the school." I do wish I could go back home to change before going over Alex's, but I know for a fact that if I go inside the house soaking wet the way I am, mom won't let me back out. She'll make me take a shower and go to bed for the night so I'm not sick for the hearing tomorrow. "I think I have everything I need anyway…" I pick up my purse off the floor and rummage through it.

"Are you sure you don't have to go home for anything? I don't have a problem with taking you home then taking you back to the school if you need to grab something." She pushes a button and cranks the heat way up. "Do you need like… tampons or anything? I swear you said yesterday that you were on your womanly."

"…I like… woke up without it this morning." I swipe my soaking wet hair out of my face. "It's been really weird since I started taking birth control. They said that it's normal for it to fuck up your cycle when your body is still getting used to it, but… it's been super weird. I came on two days ago and now it's completely gone. It was all heavy the first day then it was super light yesterday and this morning it was just…gone."

"Someone's getting laid tonight then, yes?" She takes her eyes off the road for a split second to wink at me. "You never did tell me what it was like, by the way. You said you would but you never did. Was it like… painful? Because I heard that it could be." She busts out in soft laughter. "Not that I've ever seen it or anything like that… but it's not really a secret that Alex is packing. And you're kind of small… so I was just wondering how that worked out for you."

"First of all, I'm probably just gonna tell him that I'm still on my period. I'm not really in the mood to have sex tonight, so I'll probably just play off that. That way, he won't even try anything." I move my hair out of my face again and turn to her just slightly. "And it was… I don't know. It wasn't painful at all. It was more crazy than anything."

"Crazy?"

"Yeah. Cause like… we did it in every way possible so it was just crazy. It didn't hurt and he wasn't like… super rough or anything. It was just sex." I look out the window for a moment. "…Honestly, it could've waited. I was so excited to just do it… and it wasn't even worth all of that. It could've waited. It wasn't even what I thought it was going to be." I heave out a long, hard sigh and look down at my wet pants. "But I do that a lot, you know? I rush things and then get pissed when they're not what they cracked up to be. Don't get me wrong. It wasn't horrible and I didn't… NOT enjoy, yanno? It just wasn't worth me rushing it. It could've waited until we were together longer. I kinda just didn't want to be like all his other girls and sleep with him within the first month. But I was being stupid."

"You are NOT like his other girlfriends, Jo. I'm not even Alex's best friend and I know that. You're NOT like the others and we all know that. We ALL know it."

"How do you guys figure?" I lick my lips. "Because at this point, I'm not even sure where me and Alex stand. It's like… okay. We were together and we weren't having sex. So it left a little…realm. It left a realm for us to take it to the next level when we felt it was serious enough. Now that we've already had sex… what's left? I'm not sure where we stand anymore. And then it's all weird because now does it mean that we have to have sex all the time? And if we don't do it all the time, does it make it any more special? I'm just confused. I'm so hung up on NOT being like all the other girls. He won't even tell me about the other girls. He tries to fake it like it's Lucy and only Lucy. But I know for a fact that there were a bunch before me. Which makes me wonder why I'm any different."

"Because, Jo. He talks about you…but not like he usually talks about girls. He… he sees you, which is big for Alex. If you had known him for as long as we've known him, you'd be able to see it yourself. But you're blind to the fact because you're only getting the last details…you know? It's like… you can't see it, because you just now started with it. And you're right. There were MANY before you. Lucy's just… the only one that's ever came close to how he feels about you. He doesn't call you sexy. He calls you beautiful. And usually, if he's not screwing you within a week, you're dumped. He waited a month for you. And he really cares about you. He asks us all the time about you, and he's never done that before. Even with Lucy. He'll like… ask us for advice because he doesn't want to make you feel a certain way. He really cares about you, Jo. You don't ever have to worry about being one of his girls because you're far from that already. And he beats ASSES over you, Jo. He...doesn't play around about you. That's the one thing that he gets pissed off about when it comes to you. He absolutely hates it when boys look at you or stare at you or even look like they might want to touch you. It actually took him quite some time to be okay with the fact that little Shane hugs you and stuff."

"That's another thing. Should I be concerned that he's so possessive? Like… he's not gonna go crazy and shoot me if we break up or something like that, is he?"

"Nah. Alex isn't like that. You remember when you guys broke up for like…a day?" I nod my head and mumble, "uh huh" at her. "He was so depressed that whole day. He was listening to sad breakup music at lunch and he wouldn't even eat. It was bad, Jo. You broke him. And if you're the ONE girl that can break him… you're special. You should really try telling him how you feel. Alex is pretty understanding when it comes to things like this."

"I can't talk to him, April. Literally, I can't." I nonchalantly crack my knuckles. "We've been together for a while and I STILL get nervous around him. It's like I never know what to say to him but I definitely feel some kind of way for him. Then when I do think of something to say to him, I start losing myself in what I'm trying to say. And he always misinterprets it as me coming off kind of shy, but it's just hard to say what's on my mind. I'm not shy. I just don't know how to tell him things. Like… if I want to kiss him, how do I say that? If I want to hold him, what do I say? When I want him to hold me, when I want to ask him how he feels about me, when I want to tell him how CRAZY he makes me when he's in my presence, I don't know how to. And then he starts thinking that I'm not all that into him, which clearly isn't true. I just don't know how to express my feelings around him."

"Actions speak louder than words, Jo. If you don't feel like you can tell him how you feel, why don't you show him? Kiss him, hug him even when he resists you, hold his hand even when nobody's watching… just show him." She pats me on my arm. "I get that you're just a baby and you're kind of getting used to this whole relationship with a senior thing. But you don't have a reason to be insecure. You're pretty, you're sweet and Alex really loves you. Be more secure about your relationship, Joey. Okay?"

"Okay." I nod once and think of a way to change the subject to something less heavy. "So um… have you figured out how you're going to confront Jackson about everything?" I fold my hands and look out the window again. "Are you going to forgive him?"

"Still haven't decided that. It's tough because I know for a fact that both Jackson and I are in love with each other. I just need time to be upset, that's all." She clears her throat. "You're really mature for your age, so I think you'll get what I'm about to say…" She stops at a red light and looks completely at me. "Sometimes… people do things that they don't mean. Whether it's cheating, saying something they didn't mean, causing a problem that they didn't mean to cause… or even starting a fight. Everybody is flawed, Jo. There's nobody in this world that is perfect…despite what we think. And I've accepted that Jackson made a mistake. I'm not quite sure if I'd like myself very much if I didn't accept the fact that yes, he made a mistake and yes, he can be sorry for it. Especially when people, like Jackson, are still growing up in a sense. At this point, I think I'm just going to hope that the immaturity will go away… so I'll probably end up forgiving him. But it's complicated."

"…So maybe I should just forgive Steph, Leah and Heather." I shrug my shoulders and think about what she just said. "I know I'm mature for my age, but that's only because I had to grow up at a young age. Not everybody just…gets the maturity thing the way I did. And even though I'm not sure… I'm just gonna try to believe that they wouldn't have done that to me…had they been more mature and a little more grown up than what they've shown to be. I've just done way too much growing up for my age, and that's not anybody's fault…"

"What do you mean?"

"…I knew what a bra was in the third grade because I started getting boobs then. I knew what a pad and a tampon was in the fourth grade because I got my period before everybody else. I know how long it takes for an adoption to be processed. I know how long somebody goes to jail for possession of drugs and drug paraphernalia. I know what abandonment papers are. I know how much it costs to bury someone. I know what rape in the first, second and third degree is. I know the rules of foster care and how you get kicked out of it. I just know way too much to be sixteen." I tuck my hair behind my ear. "…I don't think I ever want to have children… but if I ever do happen to have them, I know that I don't want them to grow up as fast as their mother had to."

"You really are wise beyond your years, Jo. And that's not necessarily a bad thing." Again, she reaches over and holds my hand again. With my free hand, I reach between my legs to the spot I shoved my phone at and tap into my text messages. I tap on me and Leah's message thread and start typing.

**Fri, Nov 13, 2013**

**10:28 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **hey, um… i'll be ready for benihana tomorrow around 3:30, okay?

**10:32 p.m.**

**Leah: **awesome :)!

**Leah: **thanks again for giving us another chance, jo. i can't speak for steph and heath, but i know that i really am sorry for everything that we did to you. idk how long it's gonna take for me to make it up to you, but I promise I will eventually. I'm glad you decided to come. :)

**Me: **you're welcome.

**x x x**

"Bye, Jo." April puts her car in park as she pulls her car up into the school parking lot behind the bus that the football players rode home in. She leans across the front seat in her car to give me a hug. "Have fun over Alex's, okay? And text me tomorrow after your hearing, alright?" She stops hugging me but she doesn't let me go. Her arms are still hooked around mine. "Good luck with it, too. Don't forget to text me though. I want to know how it goes." She gives me a sweet, harmless peck on my cheek. "You're my little baby sissy… okay? And I want to know if you're okay after the hearing."

"Thanks again, Ape. I'll see you tomorrow night…right?" Once she finally lets me go, I put my purse on my shoulder and open the car door. "And I won't forget to text you. I promise." I step out of the car and shut the door behind me. _I really hope Alex doesn't take forever to get off the bus. I'm freezing cold standing out here._

* * *

"Why didn't you go home and change first? You're gonna get sick as a dog in those clothes." Just as he opens the door to his room, he throws his helmet, shoulder pads and jersey all in the corner next to his computer desk and flips the light on. He sits down on the edge of his bed and starts taking his shoes off. Shivering, I walk over and sit down next to him. I know he probably doesn't want me to, but I lay my head against his shoulder. "No, get off me." He gently shrugs my head off his shoulder. "Get up. I want you to get in the shower before everyone comes home." He stands up. "Come on."

"I'm fine. I'm just a little tired. Just turn on your heat and I'll be fine." I flop backwards and lie down on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Where is your mom, by the way? The house is empty… at 11:00 at night. Where's Aaron, Amber and your mom?" I bring my hands up and rub my eyes and yawn.

"Aaron went somewhere with Heather after the game. And my mom didn't feed Amber today so they went to grab a bite to eat on their way home from the game, I guess." He rubs his own eyes and walks over to where I'm sitting at on the bed. His hands completely bypass the bottom of my hoodie and go straight to the button of my blue jeans. With one movement and a quick snap, he unbuttons them.

"Alex, stop… what are you doing?" I lean upwards and rest myself against my elbows. Even though I asked him to stop, he still resumes to pull my jeans off. They're so tight against my body and already sticking from being soaking wet that my panties come down with them. "Dude!"

"Dude, shut up. What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you stay in wet clothes?" Courteously, he holds my panties up so they don't come off and he yanks my jeans off with one hard tug. "Quit acting like you've never taken a shower here before." He moves on to my hoodie and he's a lot more gentle this time with taking this one off. Once I'm sitting on his bed in nothing but my underwear and my bra, he bends down eyelevel with me and kisses my lips. "Hurry up… I wanna take a shower too before everyone gets home."

"If you insist…" I reach up and gingerly wrap my hand around the nape of his neck, pulling his face back to mine. "I'll be quick…" I push my lips against his mouth once again and stand up. I yank my hair out of the wet bun it was tied up in and roll the ponytail holder onto my wrist. I twist the doorknob to his bedroom door and open it up. He follows close behind me as I walk down the hallway to his bathroom. I turn on the light above the sink and sit down on the edge of the bathtub to start the shower water. He opens up the cabinet by the toilet and puts a dark blue towel and a dark blue washcloth on the back of the toilet seat for me. I pull the knob on the wall of the bathtub to start the shower once the water is hot enough for me.

"You can just leave the water running when you're done. I'll hop in right after you." He shuts the door behind him when he leaves out of the room. The temperature of the water is starting to make the small bathroom fog up, so I can't even see what I look like in the mirror. I swing my hair out of my way and unstrap my bra. Just above one of the many beauty marks/moles/freckles/whatever-they're-called that I have on my right boob, there's a sore red mark from the fabric of my bra digging in. _Maybe half the cheer squad that was in the bathroom on Thursday won't remember what my boobs look like. After all, it's not like they don't look at their own on a daily basis. Maybe I should just stop fretting over the fact that they've seen me half naked. _

The steam that's filling up the room is already making me feel warmer. For the first time in about an hour, I stopped shivering. I wrap my fingers around the black lace rim of my underwear and pull them down. The base of them is still clean, so I guess I'm really not on my period anymore. I don't know. Those pills have made it weird. I pull the shower curtain back and step one foot inside the shower. Just as I put both my feet inside and start pulling the curtain back shut, the bathroom door opens again. I'm assuming it's Alex because whoever it is didn't even bother to knock. "I forgot to give you a bar of soap." Yeah, it's him. "Here." He sticks his hand into the shower curtain and hands it to me.

I take the bar off him and put it on one of the ledges inside the shower. I pull the curtain back a little and poke my head out. "Alex!" I yell at him so he can hear me before he shuts the door on me. He comes back inside and raises his eyebrows at me with nothing more than a "huh?" I hope I'm not going to regret what I'm about to say to him… "Do you want to get in?"

"I told you to keep the water running because I'm just gonna hop in when you're finished. Wash up and get out. Take your time… but don't be too long, you know…" I can hardly see his face anymore through the foggy, steaminess in here.

"I meant _with_ me, dummy. Do you want to get in _with _me? We can kill two birds with one stone…that way we'll definitely be done by the time your mom comes back." _It's not like we haven't seen each other naked before, I guess. I mean, the lights were off and it was kind of dark in the room the last time we saw each other, but it still counts. We were still naked and we still kind of saw each other. _"You can get in with me, I don't care."

I hear the door shut and I can make out what looks like his body through the steam. I can see that he's undressing, so I move over to make room for him. It doesn't take him very long to pull open the curtain and step inside with me. I have my back turned to him so I'm not even looking. Here I go again with the whole "not knowing what to say to him" thing. I don't know why it's so hard for me to tell him some things. It's so hard for me to even verbalize some of the things I want to say. I guess I'm wasting my life with these things I want to, but can't say. I just want to be perfect around him. I feel his hand graze across the middle of my back and around to my waist. I stumble back and land completely in his arms. I don't want him to think that I hate this, so I untangle myself from his arms and turn around to give him a hug. I put my arms around his waist, lay my head on his chest and squeeze. I feel like I should say something but I can't even make a sentence. _If I could say what I want to say, I'd say I wanna blow you away and be with you every night. Am I squeezing you too tight? I guess I'm wishing my life away with these things I'll never say. _

He rests his chin against the top of my head and just holds me. _Actions speak louder than words. _I stand up on my tip toes and kiss him hard. Because I'm kissing him hard, he uses his bottom lip to force my mouth open. When our tongues meet, I nervously pull mine back into my mouth. _I didn't feel like having sex tonight. I really just felt like watching movies with him and just laying up underneath of him tonight. But I kind of do feel like doing it now. But I don't know how to say that. Do I just…. Say it? _I pull away from his kiss so I can tell him that I do want to try to have sex with him again. I look down at the floor and open my mouth. I can't. No words are coming out.

"Here… we should wash up." He very sweetly hands me my wash cloth. I can tell by the tone of his voice that he thinks he did something wrong which really makes me feel lousy. Like an idiot, I take the rag from his hand and grab the bar of soap from the ledge and start lathering the rag up. With a tight grip on my bottom lip with my top teeth, I roughly scrub my body with the rag. _There are so many ways for you to tell him what you want. You could just come out and say… "hey, wanna have sex?" Or you could just be like "I'm ready for that whole round two thing." Just open your mouth and tell him. It's ALEX, for crying out loud. _I rinse my body off, wring out the water in my rag, hang it up and get out without any other words to him. I snatch my bra and underwear off the floor, wrap the blue towel he got for me around my naked body and angrily leave the bathroom. I slam his bedroom door behind myself and sit down on his bed.

_What's wrong with me? Why do I just choke up sometimes when I'm around him like this? I swear I'm an idiot. I swear I'm retarded. I swear I'm just so stupid. I can't ever just OPEN MY FUCKING MOUTH. I just don't know how to tell him how I'm feeling. And when I don't know how to verbalize what I'm feeling, I come off as bitchy and rude and that causes him to think that I'm not even into him. No wonder he thinks he's more into me than I am to him. I act like a freaking baby when I'm in his presence. _I grab two handfuls of my soaking wet hair and pull on it. Frustrated doesn't even begin to explain how I'm feeling about myself.

His bedroom door opens up and he walks in with a white towel wrapped around his waist. "Sorry for that." He mumbles to me, shuts the door behind him and walks right over to his dresser. _Actions speak…louder than words, Jo. _I roll my eyes at the thoughts in my head and roll my towel underneath my armpit so it'll stay up without my hands holding it. I stand up off his bed and walk over to him. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I'm going to try my damnedest to show him that I WANT to be with him. I WANT to be with him, I LOVE him, I WANT to have sex with tonight. And he didn't do anything that's worth apologizing to me for. I grab his shoulder and gently pull him so that he's facing me. He still looks genuinely clueless which kind of breaks my heart. Again, I raise myself up on my tiptoes and kiss him. He immediately drops the pair of boxers he got out of his drawer and puts his hands on my waist.

This time, when he slides his tongue in my mouth, I drag my teeth along it. That should show him that I'm serious, shouldn't it? As usual, that drives him insane. His fingers squeeze and his grip tightens around my waist. He spins me around so that we've switched places and he forces me against his dresser. I'm still on my tiptoes, so I'm stumbling a little bit, which makes him effortlessly lift me up and make me sit atop his dresser. I open my legs up just enough for him to fit between them so I can kiss him easier. I'm still doing that thing to his tongue with my teeth. His hands are on the backs of both my knees, where my legs fold and mine are tangled up in his damp hair. He pulls away from our kiss, huffing and puffing out of breath. "What'd I tell you about kissing me like that?" His mouth goes to my neck, right to my turn on spot.

"You…" My own breathing stutters a little bit at how much he's seriously making me want him. It's like I'm dizzy, under a spell that he's casted on me which is making me babble like an idiot that I can't control. "You told me not to kiss you like that unless I wanted you…" I don't think I can wait anymore. I really need him. I grip a handful of his hair and pull. "Obviously I want you if I kissed you like that…" My voice is coming out in a whisper. I feel his teeth graze across the spot on my neck that really gets me in the mood and my eyes flutter shut and my mouth drops open. I feel one of his hands creep from behind my knee to the inside of my thigh. He pulls away from my body a little to make it easier on himself, but once he gets his hand between my legs, he readjusts himself and makes it so that I can go back to kissing his lips. I know what he's about to do, and I don't want him to see my face for this, so I stop kissing him and but my face inside the crook of his neck. My arms are still wrapped around his neck, so my hands are resting towards the top of his back.

He slides his hand further between my legs and my mouth opens up again. It's too quiet in this room for me to even consider moaning right now, but I don't know if I'm going to be able to help it when he actually goes in. I'm close to making noise already and all he's doing is rubbing around the outside of me in circles. Just as I think I'll be okay without moaning, he slowly pushes one finger into me and my breathing hiccups… but I don't moan. While he uses his thumb to work the outside of me, he pumps his one finger in and out. I'm SO tempted to scream. I want to scream so bad. But I don't. Instead, I curl my toes under and pull on his hair a little bit more. He moves so that he can look at me. I can only imagine what my face looks like at this moment. "Why are you so against making noise for me?" He has a smirk on his face and a slight chuckle in his voice. "You can be loud. I like screamers…"

I shake my head at him. "I don't scream." I grab the back of his head and force his lips back to mine.

He takes his finger out of me and wraps his hands around my waist again. "I bet I can make you." He picks me up like I weigh nothing to him and puts me down on his bed. He moves my towel out of the way like it's nothing but an inconvenience to him. I'm cool with being naked in front of him and all…but I wish he'd turn the lights off. I really don't want him to see my face while we're doing this. He lies down on top of me and kisses my neck. I slide my hands down his back to the rim of his towel and pull it off too. He's hard as a rock, of course. He lays down flat against me and starts rocking his body between my legs, without him actually being inside me. He kisses from my neck to my jawline and back to my lips. He sucks on my bottom lip mercilessly, which sort of makes me want him a little more than I already do.

Hypnotized by the movements he's making on top of me, grinding against me, I just run my hands along his back, praying that he won't stop, but at the same time, I'm praying that he just puts it in already. _Don't be stupid. _"…A…Alex…" His name comes out in the same tone that my voice would be in, had I been moaning. I lift my legs up so they're bent at the knees. "Alex…" He moves his face from my neck, down to my boobs. My eyelids want to close again, but I won't let them. If I let my eyes close, I'm not going to be able to stop him at all. I know how far I can go before I'm just overcome with stupidity. His tongue scrapes across the beauty mark on my right boob before he goes ahead and takes my entire nipple into his mouth. I gasp at that. "…Alex, stop it…" He's sucking on me so softly, yet so harshly that I really feel the need to moan. "…Seriously, baby… stop it…for one second…"

He takes his head away from my chest and looks up at me like he's sorry. "Did I hurt you? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." I struggle to catch my breath after that for a minute. "…Condom. And turn off the lights." I pull one of the two towels on the bed over my naked body and cover myself up when he gets off me and walks over to shut the light off. The only light in the room is coming from his TV on the other side of his room. He rummages around in his nightstand and produces a condom. He tosses the condom on the bed and locks his door. I take the shiny foil packet between my two fingers and tear it open. I pull the actual condom out of the wrapper and roll it between my fingers. I've never put a condom on before, so I just leave it to him. Come to think of it, I've never actually had protected sex before either. He takes the condom off me and puts it on like he's a professional at it.

Once he has it on, he hovers over me again and kisses my lips. "Love you." He mumbles. "Now where was I..." He snatches the towel away from my body again and lowers his body down back on top of me. "I kinda want to hear you scream…" He kisses my neck and resumes with the rocking motions of his hips between my legs. My eyes roll to the back of my head when he does that to me. "You sure you won't scream for me?"

"I'm…positive." I grab one of his hands and hold it so I can bear with how good his movements are feeling. "I…don't scream. I'm not-" He roughly smashes his lips against mine before I can finish what I'm saying. He squeezes my hand really tight as he holds my other hand too. He forces both my hands over my head and starts kissing my neck again. I don't like that too much, so I discreetly try to untangle our hands and put them down. It's just a little uncomfortable for me to not be able to move, you know? When I try to move my hands from above my head, he forces them there. I think he thinks I'm trying to fight with him in a sexual way, which isn't the case. _I can't move. I have to be able to move. _My throat starts closing up a little bit, which causes me to breathe really loud. I'm sure that to him, it sounds like I'm still trying not to moan out in pleasure but I'm really having a hard time breathing. _I can't move and I can't breathe. Just let me put my hands down. _I use my force against him, grunt and pull my hands away from his hands. He forces them there again, though. "Stop… I can't…move." I whisper so low that I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't hear me. _Don't freak out, Jo… it's okay. Just move on. You don't have to make a super big deal about what he's doing to you. He's not doing it on purpose. Calm down, don't make a big deal, move on. _I turn my head to the side so I can talk to him without being muffled. "I wanna be on top…" I whisper again, but definitely loud enough for him to have heard me. "I wanna be on top baby…"

He kisses my lips one last time. "Kay." He grabs my hips and rolls so that he won't hurt me in the process of switching positions. I can actually feel myself calming down when he gets off of me. _Maybe you just can't do it when he's on top. It seemed like that's what happened the last time too. Maybe he just can't be on top of you. _I bend my knees so that I'm comfortably straddling him and rest back on my legs. I lean down to kiss him while he goes ahead and slides himself inside of me. Going back to what April said in the car, I guess she was right. He isn't exactly small, of course. He's pretty big. But it's not painfully big. I bite down on my top lip as I adjust to actually having him inside me again. He seems to be having a tough time getting further than an inch or two. "Damn… I swear you're tighter than the last time…" _Just stop talking. _If he wasn't so scared about hurting me, he could've been gotten a little more inside. I keep trying to tell him that he's not going to break me if he's just a little forceful.

Because I'm tired of him ranting and raving about how tight I am down there, I grab the both of his hands and hold them. I really don't want to hear about my body and what he thinks of it. That's just awkward. _Let's see if I remember how I did this last time… _I start out by rocking back and forth like I did the last time, because I still need just a little bit more movement in order to get used to this. Just like last time, he takes his hands out of mine and puts them on my hips. His hands push my hips back and forth, guiding me. Specifically because I hate being told what to do by him in the bed, I don't move back and forth. I start bouncing up and down just to defy him.

His fingers curl under and his fingernails scratch at my hips. I can't help but smile at the fact that he likes it. I stop bouncing up and down so much and start moving back and forth pretty fast. His nails dig pretty deep into my hips again which makes me smile some more. I lean down and give him a kiss, but I don't stop rocking back and forth on top of him. He grabs my hips so tight that his hands actually slip away. "You have to get off me…" He sits up and puts his face in my chest. Really gently, he lies me down so that we're on the opposite end of his bed now. "I want this to last longer than six seconds, and I haven't even made you scream yet."

"Not gonna happen." I playfully and seductively roll my eyes at him and pull him down on top of me. "You might as well just give up, because you're not gonna make me."

"We'll see about that." He chuckles lightly and lifts my leg up. Without hesitation or warning, he puts it back in which actually does make me moan a little bit. Again, he puts his hands inside mine and puts them over my head. Why does he insist on doing that? It's like the hair pulling thing. Why does he have to do this? He's not gonna stop until I tell him not to. Once more, I try snatching my hands out of his to put them down but he won't let me. I can't move!

This time isn't like the last time, either. It's worse because I already know that he won't let me take my hands down. He's moving in and out of me, but I don't even feel it. I feel… like he's crushing me. He's so heavy and I can't move. _Please breathe, Jo. Breathe. Just breathe. _I can't. I desperately try to take my hands out of his hands again but it's no use because he's just… strong. My jaw starts trembling and my vision blurs up with tears. _He's so heavy. _"…Alex…." My crying voice is strikingly similar to my pleasure voice, so I guess he can't tell the difference. "Alex, please…" I'm about three seconds away from full our, complete SPAZZ mode. "….NO, YOU HAVE TO GET OFF ME LIKE RIGHT NOW…ALEX, GOD… STOP! ALEX!"

He lets me go so quickly that you would think that my crying is burning him. "Whoa…. Whoa, okay… okay." He grabs his quilt and pulls it over the both of us while he's holding me in his arms. He's squeezing me.

"I SAID LET ME GO AND I'M NOT FUCKING JOKING. LEMME GO…LEMME GO!" I scratch his arms pretty hard…so hard that I drew a little bit of blood. "WHERE ARE MY CLOTHES?! GIMME MY CLOTHES, I WANNA GO HOME!"

"Ouch, Jo! Stop!" He squeezes me tighter. When's he gonna realize that squeezing me isn't helping me?! Squeezing is worse! "Just stop it! Just stop it!"

I dig my nails deeper into his flesh and scratch. "LET ME GO! I CAN'T BREATHE… I CAN'T BREATHE… I CAN'T… I CAN'T… I CAN'T BREATHE… HELP ME…"

"I'm helping you. I'm helping you." He forces my head onto his chest. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry, okay? I… I didn't know. I didn't know." He kisses my temple. "I didn't know. It's me, though. It's me… and I'm not trying to hurt you." He starts rubbing my hair. "You weren't ready… and I'm sorry. It's okay, though. It's okay."

"I wanna go home! I wanna leave…. I wanna go home… I wanna go home…" My chest starts hiccupping again. "…I don't know what just happened… I wanna go home… I don't know what happened…"

"You just weren't ready, that's all." I feel a droplet of water splash down on my bare shoulder blade. Not my tear… is it his? Is he crying? "I'm sorry. Are you mad at me?"

"I want to go home."

"I'm sorry." He starts rocking me back and forth in his arms. "I didn't know. We don't ever have to… we don't ever have to again. I promise babe. I promise. We don't ever have to do it again. I'm sorry. I should've noticed. I should've noticed that you weren't okay and I didn't. I'm so sorry, Jo. I'm sorry." He kisses my temple again. My eyes inadvertently shut. His fingers graze my back. "I won't ever do that again. Just please don't be mad at me, okay?" He's definitely crying. I can hear the tears in his voice. "You mean so much to me… I can't afford to lose you, okay? So you can't be mad at me. I didn't know. And I'll never do that again. I love you, okay? I love you so much… I love you."

I think I'm asleep, honestly. My eyes are closed and I feel like I feel when I'm sleeping but I can still hear everything that he's saying and I can still feel everything that he's doing. I think I might've fallen asleep. I was already tired when I came here. I feel him lean forward. I think he noticed that I'm sleeping, because he slowly lies me down and gets off the bed. He leaves me alone for a little while, but when he starts messing with me again, he's putting clothes on me. A t-shirt and a baggy pair of shorts. I don't have underwear on, I don't have a bra on. I can definitely hear how hard he's crying. I lazily open my eyes. "…Alex?"

"I'm right here, babe. I'm right here." He's dressed in boxers and a wife-beater shirt. "Just go back to sleep, okay?" From the looks of it, he's cleaning up his room a little bit. "You can sleep here tonight…. I'll… I'll call Ross and… And I'll cover for you." He makes sure that I'm comfortably between his sheets and lying on a fluffy pillow. "Just sleep."

I sit up in his bed. "…You…" My eyes are so tempted to close. "I love you…and I'm sorry for scratching you." I can see the red marks and the little bit of blood on his arms from me.

"Don't worry about that. I love you too. Just get some rest."

"…Okay." I lie back down and close my eyes.


	48. A Million Things

**A/N: **Chapter is slightly **M **rated. Chapter is VERY long, so don't start reading unless you're comfortable lol.

* * *

There are a million things that I have to do today. A million things that I am in no way, shape or form, ready to do. A million things that I would love to have an out on. A million things that I'd rather have cancer than do, no over-exaggeration on that. I just have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that today, will end disastrous. I woke up with this feeling, I took a shower with this feeling, I brushed my teeth with this feeling and I'm shoving my feet into white high-heeled dress shoes with this feeling. You ever see that movie called "Click"? The one with Adam Sandler in it, and he had one of those universal remotes that actually controlled his life. He could fast forward through anything, mute people, rewind, replay, add commentary to his life. Maybe I'm just being my usual melodramatic self, but I'd seriously consider selling one of my kidneys for one of those remotes. I just want to fast forward through today and wake up tomorrow…or maybe even Monday.

I waddle uncomfortably over to my dresser and shove my black-rimmed, plastic-framed glasses on my face. I seriously doubt that I'll be doing anything today that'll require me to use my glasses, but I just think it's fitting for me to wear them. Something about today just makes me have this unwavering feeling to want to act like a nerdy little freshman. I'm not sure if that's to my advantage or to my detriment at this point. I didn't have time to straighten my hair last night, so I don't have much of a choice but to let it go wavy. As I adjust my glasses on my nose, I step back and look at myself in the body mirror hanging beside my closet. I smooth my white lace dress down so that it's perfectly straight, adjust my sheer nude-colored stockings and make sure my shoes aren't scuffed up. I look perfect, if I do say so myself. Like an American-Girl baby doll that just stepped out of a rich family member's wedding chapel. I'm supposed to look innocent in white…so the lawyer said.

I pop a piece of Double Mint chewing gum into my mouth to ease my bubbling, queasy stomach, grab my cell phone off the charger and shut the door to my bedroom behind me. Mom made me breakfast this morning, but I had to respectfully decline. I just can't even fathom eating anything at the moment. Slowly and steadily, I inch myself down the steps in my high heels. Shane's sitting piled up on the couch with a blanket over him, watching something on TV. I can't figure out why he's up so early in the first place, but whatever. He leisurely glances over at me and lazily lifts his hand up to wave. "Mom's in the car."

"'Morning to you too." I mutter and grab my jacket off the coat rack behind the front door. I slip my arms inside the sleeves, fix the white lacy bow I tied in my hair and walk outside into the crisp morning air. Normally, I'd sit down and confront Shane and ask him why he was so short with me, but I seriously just don't have the energy to do it this morning. Plus, I've already deduced that he's irritated with me for staying at Alex's last night. He's irritated with the fact that Alex called him last night and asked him to cover for me so I could sleep at his house. He thinks that the only reason I stayed over there was to have sex with Alex but again, I don't have the energy to prove him wrong. Besides, it's none of his business what Alex and I did…or didn't do last night.

I yank the car door to the passenger's side open and step inside it. Mom looks really professional in the black business suit she put on this morning. Her hair's done up all pretty and nice too. I buckle my seatbelt and rest my head against the headrest, totally dreading what we're about to go do. Without a word to me, she backs out of the driveway and speeds along down the road to get to the courthouse. She makes a swift turn onto the freeway and takes one hand off the wheel to touch my kneecap. "Are you still planning to go out to dinner with your little friends later?" I feel like I'm going to puke if I open my mouth, so I just nod at her. "Then you're spending the night with your other friend, yeah?" I nod again. I feel myself getting ready to throw up. It's coming up my throat. I stare out the window in an attempt to calm my stomach down. It's going to take us 20 minutes to get to the courthouse and I don't know if I can wait that long. I need to throw up.

Mom leans forward and taps the "CD" button on the radio. I watch her turn the volume up. I think she can tell that I'm not feeling very well, because she's just leaving me alone right now. I lightly close my eyes and try to keep my vomit down by listening to the music. Mom's not into hardcore rap or anything like that. She mostly just listens to Mariah Carey and lots of old music groups, so I know the soft music will hopefully soothe me. As soon as the music starts, I realize the song as one that I've heard plenty of times before, but I haven't heard it since I was a little kid. Way back when I used to have to stay over Shane's house every weekend because grammy was at work and preschool wasn't in session, mom would sing this to me while I "helped" her make dinner. She only sung it to me until I learned all the words to finally sing it with her. I remember sitting on the counter, rolling up ground beef to make meatballs, sucking on my pink pacifier, floating on cloud nine because I felt special when she'd sing to me. I wonder if she remembers that.

I don't remember the lyrics at all. I don't remember it enough to sing with her right now, even if I was feeling well enough to do it. I don't know if she even remembers that this used to be our special little song. But just in case she remembers, I don't want her to think I forgot. So I scoot over as much as I can and lay my head on her shoulder while she drives. As the traffic on the freeway slows to a steady stop, she turns her head just a little, but enough to kiss my forehead. "Put on a little Dylan sitting on a fence. I say that line is great, you ask me what it meant by. Said I shot a man named Gray. Took his wife to Italy. She inherited a million bucks and when she died, it came to me. I can't help it if I'm lucky…" She softly sings the lyrics that I've long forgotten in her motherly, melodious voice. "I only wanna be with you. Ain't Bobby so cool? I only wanna be with you." I close my eyes and just listen to her. It honestly never occurred to me just how much I really love this woman. "Yeah I'm tangled up and blue. I only wanna be with you…"

At this point, I'm not sure if she knows that I remember this song or not. I had to have been about three or maybe four the last time she's sang this to me. She probably doesn't even expect me to remember. So I lick my lips, despite the fact that I might throw up all over the car, and whisper the only line I do remember. "You can call me a fool… I only wanna be with you." I swallow the little bit of bile that rose up in my throat and sigh. "…You never did take me to their concert like you promised."

"Hootie and the Blowfish aren't even a group anymore, Jo." She smirks. "Otherwise I would've."

**x x x **

"Are you ready to go in here?" Mom throws the gearshift in "park" and turns the car off. Before she even opens her door to get out, she turns to me. I haven't looked at myself in a while, but I'm guessing that my face is probably pale. I don't feel like anything. I feel lifeless and cold, very cold. My mouth is dry. My face is numb. My stomach is doing backflips and my entire body is just freezing. She finally opens up her door and steps out of the car. As if I can't control my body, my head immediately snaps over to look at her from the foggy window. She disappears as she walks over to my side of the car. Slowly, my head returns itself back to looking straight forward. On the underside of the cushion of the seat, my fingers tense up in an animalistic way and grip the seats. Mom flings my door open and my jaw clenches itself tight. My entire body stiffens. "Come on, Jo." She leans across my lap and unstraps my seatbelt. Tears are stinging my eyes badly, but I don't even know how to blink anymore. I can't blink. "Let's go, Jo…" She holds my hand and pulls on me.

My chest violently jolts up as I struggle to breathe correctly. With that sudden movement, the tears fell from my eyes but I can't move enough to wipe them. She forcibly unhinges my fingers from their space on the cushion and pries me out of the seat as best as she can. _He's in there. You're going to see him. _Mom grabs my legs and tries to force me to get out of the car but I seriously just can't. I'm not ready for this. I can't do this like I thought I could. "…Please don't make me do this." I whisper to her.

She stops using force against me and just looks at me. "…Look at me, Jo. Look at me." I can't bring myself to flash my eyes over to her, so she kneels down and puts her hands on my arms. "I'm gonna be right there. Right there with you. I'm not gonna let anything happen to me. I'll never let anybody hurt you. You're my girl, remember? You're my girl. It's gonna be alright. You can do this. I know you can. You're a little fighter. You've got more strength in your fingertip than most people have in their entire bodies. You can do this, baby. I wouldn't bring you here if I didn't think you could do this." She holds my hand and helps me out of the car. This time, I actually get out with her. She gently glides her hand over my cheeks and my nose to wipe away the tears that fell. "Come here." She mumbles and pulls me closer to her body. Before she wraps her arms around me, she pecks me on my cheek. "You just tell them the truth. You tell the truth… that's all you have to do."

"M…Mr. Walters said I should try to make them…like me. The… jury or whatever. He said I should make them like me. How do I do that?" I put my face in the crook of her neck and have just a little mini meltdown. There are not a lot of tears, but there's enough.

"Hey….. Hey." She holds my shoulders and pushes me away from her so she can look at me. "Jo, you just sit in there and you tell them what happened. You tell them what he did and you tell them the TRUTH. No matter what anybody says, you tell them the truth. You'll have no problem getting them to like you." She wipes my tears again and fixes my hair. "You're Jo…" She smiles at me. "I fell in love with you, even though you used to stick stuff in my toilet and knock my son out in the middle of the street. Nobody has a hard time falling in love with you. You're Jojo…everybody loves you." I clench my eyes shut tightly and wipe them off. I'm done crying. I open them and nod. "Now come on… before you mess up your pretty little face any more."

I lock my fingers inside hers and cautiously walk towards the doors of the courthouse. Mom pulls the door open and we're thrust into nice, warm air. She walks over to the little window with the secretary behind it. I don't know if I'm allowed, but I have to…so I sit down in one of the blue chairs beside a stack of magazines. I look down at my legs and notice a small run in my stockings. Crap. I reach into the pocket of my jacket and grab my phone. I don't know why, but it seems fitting to check my text messages.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**8:01 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **good luck at ur hearing babe. Love u so much

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**8:21 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**April: **Isn't your hearing today? If it is, good luck and be strong in there! Love, April.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**8:34 a.m.**

**Group iMessage**

**Leah: **Hey good luck with everything in there today. Look forward to seeing you later Jo :)

**8:35 a.m.**

**Heather: **yeah. Hope everything goes your way today. You're in my thoughts xoxo

**8:36 a.m.**

**Stephanie: **I love you Jo. I hope everything goes okay today. Stay strong, ok? And text me when it's over to let me know you're ok. Love ya.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**8:40 a.m.**

**Text Message**

**Shane: **when u get this, tell ma that we r out of toilet paper. Oh & good luck. 4got to tell u that this morning.

"Come on, honey. We're ready to go back." Mom offers her hand to me just as I finish reading Shane's text message. I lock my phone, shove it back into the jacket pocket and stand up. My legs feel like Jell-O but I'm trying so hard to keep it all together. Mom leads me, sort of drags me, actually, through a set of double doors and another waiting room. Another secretary behind a counter stands up and smiles at the both of us. Mom politely shakes her hand clears her throat. "We're here for the 9:00 date. The woman out front said that we could just come back here because everyone else is already checked in."

The preppy woman hovers over a computer and does a whole lot of clicking. "Josephine L. Wilson?"

"Yes, that's us." Mom nudges me softly with her elbow to make sure I'm still all right. The woman hands each of us a paper and wishes us good luck before mom whisks me away off in a different direction. We walk back through another set of double doors. This particular room is really cold…bitterly cold. The carpets are a dark brown color and the pews are lined up similar to that of a church. Mom takes my jacket off and fixes my hair again. Mr. Walters walks back from a table near the front of the room to greet us.

"Good morning." He mumbles to mom before turning all his attention to me. "Okay, Jo… here's the deal." He stands in front of me and puts his hands on my shoulders. I really wish everyone would just stop touching me. "You and your mother are going to come up and sit at the table right next to me and Mr. Burns… the District Attorney that you spoke with. There will be a glass of water for you to drink if you wish. The Myers' will be sitting in the table right next to ours, but you don't even have to look that way if you don't want to. His lawyer is going to start out when the judge comes in. He's gonna say some things to the judge about you that you might not understand but that's alright. I've heard through the grapevine that you have quite the temper, and with that being said, please don't react to anything that's said. Don't react, Jo. You'll have your turn to explain everything, dear. When it's my turn to speak, I will call you to the stand, you'll get sworn in…which is all no big deal. I'll ask you some of the questions we discussed and you'll just tell me the truth…like we rehearsed. At this point, I'm not sure if his lawyer will ask to cross-examine you, but if he does…I need you to just tell the truth. ALWAYS tell the truth… got it kiddo?"

"…I got it." I mumble.

"You're a rockstar, Jo." He gives me a thumbs up like I'm younger than sixteen and starts walking back towards the table we're all supposed to sit at. "It's only 8:50, so we're still ten minutes off from starting… if you need to use the restroom, you can go ahead and do so right now."

I push open the little gate that separates the tables that we sit at from the rows of seats that guests sit at and stand at the chair between mom and Mr. Walters. Mom puts my jacket on the back of my chair. "Do you need to go to the bathroom, Josie?"

"…No, I'm fine." I sit down in the chair and cross my legs.

"Well I'm going to go use the restroom, okay? I'll be right back. Watch my purse for me, baby." I nod once and look down at the wood pattern on the table I'm sitting at. Mr. Walters and Mr. Burns both rush out of the room as if something's more important than being in here with me at the moment. It's just me in this room. Just me and the clock on the wall. I look around and sigh. _You really don't need to be alone. What if they walk in at any moment and you're all alone with them? Plus, do you really want to be alone for the first time you see him in how long? _I scoot out my chair and stand up quickly. I think I remember seeing the restroom sign near the first waiting room we walked into. I'll just go be with mom.

I push open the gates again and sluggishly walk out the doors. I feel like I'm not even here. My physical body is here but my mental body is elsewhere. I feel like everything isn't really happening to me. I would give anything to not be here right now. When I get into the second waiting room, I see a blue sign that says "RESTROOMS". She probably went into here since it's closer. I pull the door open and walk inside. I'm in a smaller, very narrow room that holds host to an array of doors. One says "Men", one says "Women" and the other says "Handicapped." I push open the women's room and step inside. I look at the floors of the stalls for her black shoes.

"…Mommy?" I lean down to keep looking, but it's clear that there's nobody but me in here. I stand straight up and sigh again. I really can't see her walking all the way to the front to use the restroom when there's one right here. _Maybe she went into the handicap one. _I walk back to the door and leave out of the bathroom. I walk down the narrow hallway to the handicap one and try again. "Mom?" I call out her name as soon as I walk inside. I bend down again to look for her shoes. Nope. Nobody in here either. "…Mommy?" _Just go back to the courtroom. The hearing is going to start soon so she'll be there. Unless she left me… _I reluctantly walk back to the door and leave out of this bathroom too.

I go back into that little hallway thing again and look around. She's really not in here. Just as I pull the door to the whole bathroom complex open to make my way back to the courtroom, I hear a door open behind me. I swing my head around quickly, expecting her to be there. I should yell at her if she was in there all along. If she was in one of the bathrooms I checked the whole time, she surely heard me call her name and she didn't even answer. I should yell at her for that.

But the face that I come face to face with sends my body into complete shock. I feel like somebody just dumped an entire bucket of ice down my shirt. My legs aren't even there anymore. They've turned to complete mush. My hand is gripped around the doorknob so tightly that I lost feeling in my fingers. I feel like the life has just been sucked out of my body. Am I alive? I don't know. I don't feel alive.

Eyes. Brown eyes. Squint… like they're smiling at me. Lips. Perfectly shaped, pink lips with corners that turn up into a devilish smile. Hands sweep back the lengths of his suit jacket like they're getting ready to do something. One step towards me. Smiling. "You haven't changed a bit…" That voice. God, that voice.

I yank my hardest on the doorknob and try to pull the door open to get out of here, but it won't open. "NO, OPEN THE DOOR! SOMEBODY OPEN THE DOOR!" I slap my hands against the wood and keep pulling on the door as hard as I can. "OPEN THE DOOR! THERE'S SOMEBODY IN HERE!" Once I see that the door won't open, I turn back towards him. "Don't touch me…."

"I'm not gonna touch you, you pretentious bitch. I'm not gonna touch you… and I didn't touch you then, either." He takes another step towards me. "What balls you have to do this, though. I knew you were ballsy, but I didn't think you were ballsy enough to drag me in here and LIE about shit, just to cover your ass with your gay-ass boyfriend. I never did anything to you that you didn't want me to do to you. And you loved it." He puts his hands on either side of me and gets in my ear. "Bet you didn't tell him how wet I got you… did you?" He takes his hands away from me and pulls the door wide open. "And for the record…" He steps out of the bathroom. "It wasn't that good."

I take a step back so that I'm in a corner and clonk my head back against the wall. I can't even say anything to him. I can't even remember how to function when I see him. My stomach starts doing backflips again. I bring one of my hands up to my mouth and run, despite my heels, into the nearest bathroom to me. I fling open a stall and aimlessly heave everything in my stomach up. I spit into the toilet and hold my hair back. I'm not done. My shoulders violently hunch up to my ears and my middle constricts so tight that it hurts to throw up this next round into the toilet. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I think I'm done. Wait, nevermind. Another gush of vomit just comes out of my mouth.

I hear footsteps come up behind me. I look down at the floor and see the black tips of shoes. It's mom. Her fingertips graze the top of my forehead as she graciously holds my hair back for me while I throw up. I spit hard into the toilet once more. I'm done now. Mom's fingers stroke through my hair comfortingly. I spit again, just to make sure everything's out of my mouth. I reach up and slap the handle to flush the toilet. "…You okay now?" _That's not mom's voice._

I turn around really fast. "…Alex?!" It's him, in the flesh. His shaggy brown hair is all messy, like he just rolled out of bed. But he's dressed nicely in a brown outfit with black shoes. Excitedly, I throw my arms around him. "Baby, what are you doing here?" His arms are tightly wrapped around my waist. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm here for you…" He rubs my back. "I was gonna stay home, but I couldn't even sleep knowing that you're going through this. I wasn't about to let you go through this alone. I'm here for you." He starts to let me go just a little. "Come on. Your mom's worried sick about you. As soon as I walked in, she asked me if I've seen you. Then those assholes walked in without the big asshole and she freaked. 'Cause you weren't there and he wasn't there and this place is only but so big…" He grits his teeth together. "Took everything in me not to kill him…"

"…Yeah, I seen him. He was in here with me." I take my arms from around him. "Alex, I don't know if I can do this. I…. I throw up every time I see him. If I can't even form sentences in his presence, how am I supposed to tell twelve strangers what he did to me? I'm…. I'm scared. I'm so scared. I'm not ready for this…"

"You can do this. You can do this." He goes right back to hugging me. "You can DO this, Jo. You do this, and we get it all over and done. You can put it behind you. You can do this. I know you can do this. I KNOW you can. I won't let anything happen. If you're scared, just think of me. Just look right at me. I have your back. Okay?"

"…Okay."

"You can do this."

* * *

I cross my legs and adjust the play with the paper cup in front of me out of pure nervousness. I just wasn't expecting all these people to be here. I wasn't even informed that all these people would be here. I didn't think it was this serious. I thought I was gonna come in, plead my case, Jason was gonna plead his and then the jury would decide who they believe. I didn't know that they'd bring in all these witnesses and people to testify. They brought Mrs. Who, for crying out loud. I look up and make brief eye contact with Mrs. Who. She's being questioned and I'm really sorry for that. I never meant to drag her into my problems.

"State your name, please." The burly broad shouldered, grey-haired judge demands.

"Dr. Brenda Brantswhouser…. Mrs. Who, for short." She adjusts the microphone in front of her and looks at me. I look away from her. I just feel bad that she had to come here.

"Continue." The judge motions with his hand to the short man that's supposed to be defending Jason.

The short man walks around in front of the jury and rubs his hands together. "So Mrs. Who… what do you do for a living, if I may ask?"

"I am a pediatric psychiatrist, psychologist and anger management specialist."

"Pediatric meaning you work with children." He elaborates for the jury. "You're both a psychiatrist and psychologist? As well as an anger management specialist? How'd that work?"

"I double majored and went to a certificate program for my anger management papers."

"Where'd you graduate from, might I ask?"

"…I got my bachelor's from Berkeley in California, and I completed both my master's and my doctorate's from UCLA's Medical School. And now I'm employed at Seattle Grace Hospital."

"And you work with Miss Wilson, yes?"

"Jo has been my patient for about two months now."

"And why did you first start seeing her?"

"Um… Jo first came to me for anger management. Shortly after the death of her grandmother, she came to see me."

"And what's her official diagnosis, if you have one for me?"

"At this point in Jo's treatment, I don't have a specific diagnosis in mind just yet. I've been treating her for Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder and Insomnia. However, I recognize some manic behaviors that could be classified into Bipolar Disorder but I am cautiously reluctant to diagnose her with Bipolar Disorder just yet."

"So she's being treated with medication for anxiety, panic and insomnia? All disorders she's had for a very long time, right?"

"Um… not exactly. When I first started treating Jo, she did suffer from bouts of anxiety attacks and frequent anger outbursts, but the panic and the insomnia have just been brought into more prevalence over the last month."

"And have you noticed exactly what seems to cause her 'outbursts'?"

"As far as the anger goes, a number of things could cause Jo to erupt. She's very easily… triggered when it comes to that. But both the anxiety and the panic seems to come out when I'm trying to get her to talk about certain things she's repressed…. Most often the subject of rape causes her to go into a state of panic."

"Can you describe for me what she's like in a panicked state?"

"….She's very…distant. Very cut-off from me. She doesn't want to be touched and it's very hard for her to breathe. It's similar to those who have asthma attacks. Sometimes she feels the need to run. She often cries. Sometimes she yells. It all varies."

"But a number of things could cause her to fly off the handle like this?"

"Correct."

"No further questions, your honor."

Mrs. Who did a real good job of making me sound like a nutcase. The jury is probably already thinking that I should be locked up in a mental institution. I'm not sure how much longer of this I can even take.

**x x x**

"How old are you, Jason?" The short guy that just got done questioning Mrs. Who is questioning Jason now. I feel like I might throw up again. I reach out and grab my glass of water. I take a small sip and put it back down. Jason's smiling as he's talking into the microphone and the jury people seem to be eating him up. He's likeable…which isn't good for me.

"I'm a fresh eighteen… just turned eighteen yesterday." He chuckles like something's funny and his laugh makes me cringe. I remember him laughing at me for crying…

"Happy belated birthday, by the way." The man walks over towards me. "What do you like to do for fun, Jason? You're a popular senior in Franklin High School, I imagine a guy like you has lots of hobbies."

"I like to shoot hoops. Got accepted to Washington State on a hoop scholarship already. If it's not basketball season, I like to lounge around the house with my siblings. I'm just a… laid back kinda guy."

"So you're a bright young man with dreams and goals. Pretty impressive, man. Already been accepted on a basketball scholarship? NBA dreams, yes?" The man walks back over towards the jury. "…So I'm sure you have girls all over you. Everybody wants a piece of the superstar athlete, right?"

"Yes sir." Jason keeps smiling and I really just feel like throwing up. I don't feel good…

"And I imagine Miss Wilson was no exception to that, huh? Attractive young man with a future…Why don't you tell me about the relationship you and Miss Wilson had?"

"No sir, she wasn't an exception." He's lying and it sounds so convincing. I'm sick. "Of course, when she first came to foster with my mother, there was mutual attraction. She was initially attracted to me, and she's a beautiful girl, so I was attracted to her as well. She had been suspended from school one day during her first week in the house and I was staying home sick, so the two of us were in the house alone together… and sparks flew, of course. We're two hormonal teenagers, sparks were bound to fly. We heavily made out until I stopped her. I didn't want to risk her getting thrown out of the house for our sexual relations, so I put a stop to it… just like that. But when you like somebody as much as Jo and I liked each other, you can't help the things that happen. And yes, we engaged in sexual intercourse more than once. We had sex six times over the course of two weeks. And it was totally consensual. She wanted it as much as I did."

"Right. And when did you first get the impression that Miss Wilson was going to cry rape?" My throat is burning. I think I'm going to die. He's lying. He's lying through his teeth. Somebody's gotta believe me, right? I never wanted anything to do with that. And we didn't have sex more than twice.

"She had a boyfriend the entire time she and I were having sexual relations. She expressed concern to me that he would break up with her…or worse, if he found out about us. I guess he found out one day and that's when she started accusing me of raping her. In the midst of all this, my mother found out that we were having sex with one another, and she was going to kick Jo out of the house because that's against the rules of fostering. Jo didn't want to get kicked out, so she ran away from the house."

"What do you mean by 'worse'? Was Miss Wilson's boyfriend… abusive in any way?"

"Oh yeah." He nods. "He would slap Jo… kick her, punch her. That's where all her bruises came from. Alex is very abusive towards Jo." My jaw DROPS at that. Alex NEVER hit me. He NEVER EVER EVER EVER laid a finger on me! How dare he! I look back at Alex and his face says it all. He's PISSED.

"Thank you Jason. No further questions, your honor. The defense will rest." The short guy and Jason both take their seats back at the table next to our table. I'm in SHOCK right now. Did he just seriously LIE like that? Is he able to lie like that?!

Mom reaches over under the table and holds my hand. Mr. Walters stands up and addresses the jury people. "Good morning, ladies and gentlemen." He rushes through that like he can't wait to say what he has to say next. "I'm not gonna waste time with an extensive opening argument. I would just like to start by calling Ms. Kelly Ross to stand." Mom lets my hand go and walks to the stand. As she gets situated, Mr. Walters continues. "Now ladies and gentlemen, let me just remind you that the victim at hand is a sixteen year old girl that is still grieving the loss of her grandmother—the only guardian she's known since she was an infant. With that being said, please don't focus on the raw emotions of this case. Please focus on the facts." He clears his throat. "Now Ms. Ross, just give us all a brief background on how you know Jo and the extent of your relationship with her."

Mom looks directly at me. "I've known Josephine since she was one and a half, maybe two." She doesn't stop looking at me, either. "Barbara and Frank—her grandparents, were my neighbors for a long time. They lived a few houses up the street when my husband and I bought our house. I had talked to Barbara on more than one occasion, usually about gardening and local gossip. Some years back, they very abruptly, left and went to California. After Frank passed on, Barbara moved back home to Seattle and she had Jo with her, and she was about… maybe she was two years old. And she became friends with my son. She and my son have been best friends ever since they were babies and I've been her stand-in mother ever since then. The extent of our relationship?" I can tell that mom might cry, but she's still looking at me. "She's my baby. I love her like she's my own flesh and blood… blood couldn't make me love her any more or any less. Jo's my baby girl. I feel as if I brought her home from the hospital with me."

I love mom so much. She IS my mother. I'm sorry it's taken me this long to realize it, but dammit I know it now. She's my MOM. In all aspects of the word, she's my mommy. I loved grammy to death, of course. I loved my grammy so much and I'd still give anything in this world to have her back. But she was never my true mother. It was always Miss Kelly. And I'm sorry I took so long to realize that I had a mother all along. I wipe some tears out of my eyes and sniff.

Mr. Walters paces back and forth. "And you wanted to keep Jo, since you felt so strongly about her, didn't you? You offered to keep her OUT of the foster system. You offered to take her in and take care of her, along with your three other children, didn't you? You never wanted her to go into the foster system. But the system just WOULDN'T let you keep her without papers…right?"

"Right." Mom nods. "I cried every night over that. I don't…" She holds her hand in her hands. "I don't know if anybody here has children, but if you do… you know how heartbreaking it is to not know where they're at and what they're doing at all times. I cried every night over that little girl. I worried about her… and for good reason, it seems."

"Tell me about the night she showed up at your doorstep. When she ran away from the Myers house, she came to your house, didn't she? Can you tell me about that?"

"Yes, um…. She was downstairs with my son, Shane. And I was upstairs in my bedroom watching television. And I heard her screaming…. SCREAMING from downstairs. I rushed down to see what was wrong with her… and she… for lack of better wording, she looked beat to hell. Bloody lip, bloody eye socket, black and blue eye, bloody nose. She had… she had bruises on her neck and on her back. The bruises on her back started at the nape of her neck and went all the way down to her lower back. She was in bad shape."

"And at that point, did she tell you how she got those bruises?"

"No. She just kept repeating that she couldn't to go back to the Myers house. Not that she didn't WANT to go back…she COULDN'T. And she was scared to death about going back. So I did what I thought a mother should do, and I called those people to my house to find out what happened to my daughter. At this point, I wasn't entirely sure what happened between her and the young man. She told me that he did something to her but she still refused to tell me to what extent. As soon as the young man stepped foot inside my house, Jo…. Jo RAN upstairs and she was sick all over herself. She didn't make it to the bathroom. I had to clean her up before she could come back downstairs. And that's rare for her. I've been around Jo when she's had the stomach flu, the regular flu, colds, everything. And she doesn't throw up. I've never seen her throw up until then. And she couldn't control it. As soon as she saw Jason, it just came out."

"Thank you, Ms. Ross. No further questions." He politely helps mom down from the stand and clears his throat again. "I'd like to call Josephine Wilson to the stand."

I knew this was coming. I expected this. So it's no big deal for me to slide out my chair, stand up and walk over to the stand. Like I've seen everybody before me do, I raise my right hand as soon as I sit down. When they recite the whole "swear to tell the truth and yadda yadda yadda" thing at me, I recite the "I do" and cross my legs. _ Don't worry about making them like you. Just tell the truth… _I look at Jason. He's looking at me with disgust. I look away. I look at mom. She's wiping tears away from her face with a tissue. I look away. I look at Paula. She's comforting Jason. Again, I look away. I look back at Alex. He looks like he's going through some shit, too. I don't look away from him. I hold his gaze. I'm not so scared anymore.

"Hey, Jo." Mr. Walters is super nice to me.

"Hiiii." I try to sound as poised, polite and put together as possible. "…Lovely weather we're havin' eh?" I crack a shy, crooked smile. I made the jury laugh.

"Yes… the weather is nice, Jo." Mr. Walters takes a moment to laugh at my joke too. "So tell me somethin', Jo. I want you to tell me something you're good at. Tell me something you're good at…or something you like to do."

"…I'm good at school." I shrug. We didn't rehearse this question. What does this have to do with anything? "I make good grades and I like to learn. I have a 4.0…and I really like to learn."

"Whoa, you're the dream kid, aren't you?" He winks at me. "What do you want to be when you finish high school, Jo? Give any thought to that?"

"…I wanna be a surgeon. I wanna help people and fix problems that other people can't fix. I wanna go to med school… preferably Harvard Medical School, but yanno… dream big." The jury laughs at me again. I think I'm making them like me.

"So you have dreams, kid. You have dreams and you're determined to make something out of yourself. You wouldn't particularly be interested in a popular basketball player…when you've got everything going for yourself, even just as a little freshman…right?"

"…Right." I cross my hands. "Plus, my boyfriend's going to the NFL so what do I need the NBA for?" The sass is just coming out naturally and the jury is LOVING it.

"I suppose you're right about that, Jo." He starts pacing. "You wanna tell me about your relationship with Jason?"

"…There really wasn't a relationship." I shake my head. "I got thrown into the foster home…that I didn't even want to go to. We didn't even talk for a week. The first time we talked was when we were home alone that day."

"And you kissed him?"

"…Yes I did. But I stopped. I stopped because I didn't like the way he was trying to…" I tap my fingers. "He kept trying to take it further than what it was, so I stopped it because I didn't want it to turn sexual. But he kept telling me that… he gets what he wants, and he wanted me. So after I stopped the kissing, I kept my distance from him. I kept my distance because I didn't want anything else to happen between us because… I'm not that kind of girl."

"I get that. And you've only been physically intimate with one boy before this whole incident, isn't that correct?"

"Yes. I… I had sex once when I was fourteen and I didn't like it. So I never did it again until I was more ready. And I definitely wasn't ready to do anything with Jason. I had a boyfriend back then. So I felt guilty about even kissing him."

"Okay, and your boyfriend did find out about the kiss?"

"Yeah… I told him."

"And let's clear this up for the record, your boyfriend… Alex, he's never been physically abusive towards you, has he?"

"No. Alex wouldn't hurt a fly. I… I wouldn't be with him if he ever hit me. I wouldn't be allowed. My mom would know, because she doesn't miss a beat and I wouldn't be allowed. So no. He's never laid a finger on me."

"Alright. Continue from where you told him about the kiss you and Mr. Myers shared."

"Okay. I um… I told Alex about the kiss because I felt really guilty. And he broke up with me. I… I provided text messages as proof of that." I clear my throat. "So um… yeah. I had a fight with my boyfriend that night, and I snuck out of the house to go clear things up with him. But Alex broke up with me for kissing Jason. I went back to the Myers' house where I showered and went to bed for the night. I was crying and upset because he broke up with me and that's when Jason came into the picture…"

"And by that, you mean?"

"That was the night that he first…raped me." I look down at my lap.

"Can you tell me about that? Take your time if you need to. I need as much detail as possible though, hon."

"…Right. Uh…" I keep looking down at my lap. I'm not feeling well again. "…He snuck into my room… shut and locked the door. He said he heard me crying from down the hall, and I told him that I had a fight with my boyfriend and we broke up. He gave me a hug and told me that he was sorry for the breakup. I hugged him back, but eventually I pulled away. But he wouldn't let me pull away. And he started kissing me. I asked him to leave … because all I wanted to do was sleep. I was still upset about losing my boyfriend. But he didn't get out. He kept kissing me and then he moved in kinda rough and I asked him to please stop. But he…forced my head onto a pillow and we engaged in a brief struggle. I tried pushing him away and that's when he shoved his hand into my nose. My nose bled a lot at that. And he forced my legs apart. He told me that I was sexy and he was mad that I threw it at him on the couch and took it away. And it went from there."

"How long would you say the attack lasted?"

"…An hour. It was done before 4:30 in the morning, because that's when Paula had to feed the baby."

"And he attacked you twice more, didn't he?"

"Yes. Um… once was when I was doing the dishes. He came up behind me and apologized for the first time. He said he was sorry that I was so sexy. And he tried to… force… his…"

"He tried to force his fingers inside of you?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you tell anybody about the attacks at this point, Jo?"

"…Because. Then I'd be in the same position I'm in right now. Nobody would believe me and I'd get kicked out of the only place I had to sleep at night. I'd have to try to convince strangers that I didn't want this. I know I kissed him on the couch and that was a really big mistake… but I didn't want him to do anything to me. I screamed, I fought, I cried… I just didn't want that to happen to me. And I wasn't proud of it. So I just didn't tell… until it happened a third time."

"And the third time was when you really fought Mr. Myers off, yes?"

"Yes. Because… everything he'd done to me at that point was just… bottled up. I was so uncomfortable in the house. Every time nobody was looking, he'd grope me, make comments about my body… he took pictures of me in the shower once. And… Paula caught him with his hand down my pants. But she didn't do anything. So I just didn't think she'd do anything anyway. So I took matters into my own hands. He came into my room for second night in a row, and he started beating me…because I told him no. He slammed me into the wall, punched me in my face, choked me, kicked me in my stomach… because I tried to run. I thought he was gonna kill me, so I stopped fighting. But I ran. Because…. I just kept thinking…. He's gonna keep doing this. So I had to run… I had no choice."

Mr. Walters hands me a tissue so I can wipe my tears. The jury is passing around pictures of my bruises. "Anything else you want to say, Jo?" I shake my head. "No further questions, your honor. The prosecution rests."

I stand up but sit back down. "Wait, I'm sorry." Everybody turns their attention back to me. "I do have something I want to say." I wipe my eyes once again and take a deep breath. "I just wanna say… that I'm sorry for kissing you, Jason. I'm so sorry for teasing you or whatever with the kiss… but you know what you did to me. And you know I didn't want it. And you know that I…" I can't even talk right, but I have to get this out. I can't stop crying. "You know that I begged… I begged for you to stop. Every single time, I begged for you to stop. In front of your mother, I asked you to stop. You know that I never wanted that. You know that cried for two hours that last night while you were on top of me. You BEAT me for crying. So… So you can lie to everybody in this room and say that I wanted it… I don't care. But you can't lie to me. And you can't lie to yourself. You know the truth and I know the truth. And you can probably lie in bed at night and sleep…but I can't. And I can't…. I can't kiss my boyfriend without crying. I can't look at myself in the mirror without feeling ashamed. Maybe that'll go away, maybe it won't. But you still did it to me. You still managed to… have sex with me while I cried and begged you to stop, human being to human being. And the fact that you… were able to do that, just tells me that I should pray for you." I dab my eyes with the soaking wet tissue. "That's all I have to say." I stand up and step down from the stand. Now all I have to do is wait for the verdict. You know what? I tried my best. I told the truth and I didn't lie. If that's not enough for them to convict him, then I'll live. I did my best and I told the truth and that's all I can do.

Mom stands up and meets me at my seat at the table. She embraces me and kisses my cheek. "I'm so proud of you… you know that? I'm so proud of you, little girl. And your grammy? She's proud of you too. I'm so proud of you, Jo."

Yeah? I'm proud of myself, I think.

* * *

**A/N: **I have a question for you guys. What's your favorite chapter of this story? I'm wondering what you guys have liked so far, because if there's something that you liked, I want to write it again. Is your favorite chapter the ones that I describe Jo's childhood? The one where I talk in text messages? The one that's all in flashbacks? Just tell me your favorite chapter, please. I'll take more than one response and try to recreate them in upcoming chapters. Thanks.


	49. Forgiveness

"So, do you hate us? Is that why you're not talking? It's totally okay if you hate us…. I guess we deserve that much." Heather passes me a straw from the pile in the middle of the table. _If I hated you, do you really think I'd be sitting here having dinner with you? _Instead of voicing my distaste towards what she just said, I just tap my straw against the table to break through the paper covering and stick it into my glass of raspberry iced tea. I take a long, exaggerated sip and just half-pay attention to whatever else comes out of Heather's mouth. "…Please just talk to us, Jo. Just tell us if you hate us…tell us if you don't. Just talk to us…please."

"If you like… want to go home or something, I can call my mom. We don't have to stay here anymore." Leah pushes her glass of water away from herself and rests her chin in the palm of her hand in a distressed manner. "I knew it was too soon for us to invite her out, Steph." She mumbles. "Just gimme a minute to call my mom." She grabs her phone out her front pocket and unlocks it.

"…I'm just tired." I swish my straw back and forth in my glass and listen to the ice cubes tingle as they hit the sides of the cup. I didn't exactly lie to them. I am tired and all. I've been awake since 8:00 this morning. I did take a nap after the hearing, but I couldn't sleep for long. I'm just really tired and not in the mood to deal with them. "We don't have to leave though, Leah. It's your birthday celebration, and you should at least get to eat."

Leah puts her phone down and fiddles with the strings on her sweatshirt like she's shy or nervous about something. "…It's not really my birthday celebration." She clears her throat so she can talk louder. "My birthday was in July." I wrinkle my brow at her confession. _Then why the hell am I here? _"…This dinner is actually for you…" She puts the strings of her hoodie down and looks up at me. "This is our apology dinner to you. We…we're all chipping in to pay..."

Stephanie leans across the table to look me in my eye. "…We had to lie to you." She reaches up underneath her glasses and wipes a spot on her nose free of a tear. "We knew that if we just invited you to have dinner alone with us, you wouldn't come. So we just hoped that…if you heard it was Leah's birthday… that might've been more of an incentive."

"…But the presents? And the…cake?" I'm not sure if I'm irritated by the fact that they lied to get me here or if I'm a little bit forgiving for the fact that they're doing all this to apologize to me. "And your mom went to go get you something from the mall, didn't she?" I've decided that I'm a mixture of annoyed, forgiving and confused.

"Her mom went furniture shopping down at Levin's while we eat dinner. The presents are yours and we made the cake. It probably tastes like crap, but….yeah." Heather tucks her hair behind her ear. "It was all a big fat lie. This is actually from us…to you."

"…You guys really shouldn't have spent your money on me…" I slowly shake my head. "I don't… I don't need presents or fancy dinners or cakes. You guys can't… don't have to, I mean; you guys don't have to buy my…my friendship. I…" I can't even articulate what I want to say to them. They bought me gifts and took me to an expensive restaurant and baked me a cake. I'd be a mega bitch if I turned this down. How dare they put me on the spot like this? They had to have known that I can't just tell them to leave me alone when they're showering me with lavish things. This isn't fair.

"But that's not really…what we're trying to do." Leah shakes her head at me. "We're not trying to buy your friendship. You can still decide that you hate us after this. I mean sure, that would really suck…because we all really miss you and stuff. But we're not gonna tell you how to feel. If you still hate us after this dinner, oh well for us. Just know that we would do this for you anyway. It's not about buying our ways back to being friends with you. It about giving you the apology you deserve. We were… HORRIBLE, Jo. Horrible. And you deserve a good apology for the things we did to you."

"Right. It's not a matter of trying to bribe you into being our friend. It's a matter of… we were really terrible friends to you, you deserve an apology from the three of us, we need to make it up to you and we're GOING to make it up to you. We're not trying to make you feel like you have to be friends with us again. You don't have to accept our apology…but we owed it to you. You were a good friend to us…and we weren't even decent people to you." Steph picks up one of the present bags that the three of them stuffed under the table and hands it to me. "So just open it."

I reluctantly take the pretty red bag from her hand put it on my lap. I move the tissue paper to the side and grab ahold of whatever's in the bag. I end up pulling out a slender, smooth, black picture frame. I pull some soft paper covering off the picture frame and look at it. It's a black and white picture of the four of us that we took on my last day at Garfield before I had to go to Franklin. Heather is on Stephanie's back with her tongue sticking out. Steph is pretending to kiss Leah's cheek. Leah's cross-eyed with a big smile across her face, and she's giving me bunny ears. It's noticeable that I was crying that day, but I made the duck-face and I'm holding up the "peace" sign with my two fingers. It's a really cute picture and it kind of hits a nerve for me. I do miss them. I miss having that closeness that I can't have with Shane. I miss being able to talk like a girl with friends…but I have April now, too. I just don't know.

"Thank you…" I tuck my hair behind my ears and carefully put the picture back inside the gift bag. "…I didn't even know you were giving me bunny ears, Leah." I take another sip of my iced tea and cross my arms. "And for the record… I don't hate you guys. I'm…" I put my tongue in my cheek while I think of how to put this. "I'm upset with you guys. I just… wish you guys would've let me explain. And that just makes me really sad that you wouldn't let me explain. But I don't hate you guys. I could never hate you guys." _I might as well explain everything while I'm at it. _"I really didn't tell April, by the way. I went do—"

"That doesn't even matter anymore. What matters is-" Steph tries to interrupt me, but I put my hand up to stop her so I can continue.

"No, it does matter. It matters that you guys know my side of the story. And I'll hear yours." I roll my eyes but try to shrug off the fact that I'm just a little bit irritable. "First of all, I really didn't mean to call you trashy, Steph. I don't think you're trashy and I really didn't mean that. It just came out that way. I was looking to say that you had no remorse, but I couldn't think of the word, so classless just came out. I didn't mean that. I don't think you're trashy, and you're right. I'm in no position to judge anybody, which is why I would NEVER say that to you. I don't think I'm better than any one of you three. And I'm sorry that it came across that way, but it's seriously not me." I clear my throat as I continue. "Second of all, I'm sorry for making it seem like I'm a conceited little bitch, but again…that's not me. I was just angry and fuming and I didn't really mean it when I said I could have Aaron and Shane. I'm not that cocky. And I was wrong for even bringing up your boyfriends. I was really wrong for putting them out there like that, and I apologize for that also. And lastly, I really didn't tell April. You guys just really had it out for me in school that day, so I wanted to just… get away. You were throwing things at me, giving me dirty looks and passing me notes. So I just left and I went to go sit with April. And me and April started talking and she already knew. Jackson told her about it. She already knew."

"Alright, but honestly, we don't even care about that, Jo. We don't care about any of that. What we care about is the way we treated you…and now that you're explaining, it just makes us feel even more stupid. Because if we had let you even explain in the bathroom, none of this would have happened. I wish you would stop apologizing because you didn't do anything wrong. It was all our faults. We didn't let you explain. We just started going off on you, which was totally uncalled for and totally out of line." Heather starts after I finish. "It's our fault, not yours."

"And I mean, honestly, Jo…" Leah starts explaining herself too. "We did NOT know that Lucy and Elizabeth were even gonna do that. That's seriously not an excuse, but please believe me when I say that if we knew that they were going to take it that far, we would have NEVER told you to come to that bathroom. If I knew that they were gonna do that to you, I would've just taken my chances with getting my ass beat by you and met you one on one. The ONLY reason we invited them was to make sure that you didn't try anything, because we know how deadly you are when you get mad. That's the ONLY reason we even told them to come. And honestly, we only told Lexie, Taylor and Layla to come. But Taylor and Layla blabbed their mouths and said that we were gonna beat you up at lunchtime so a big ass crowd of people came in. Lucy and Elizabeth weren't even invited at first."

"You guys really thought that I would try to fight you, though?!" I don't know why, but the fact that they REALLY thought I would try something like that with them is really pissing me off. They already know how I feel about fighting! They should know that I would never try to beat up my friends. "That's bullshit! You should already know that I wouldn't do that! Again, this just goes back to show just how much you guys DON'T know me. I'm not like that! I don't enjoy fighting and I would never just pick a fuckin' fight for no reason. I'm not a fucking bully."

"No, we know that, Jo. We know that." Steph puts her hand up. "It's just that… I knew you were already pissed at me from the night before so I didn't want to take my chances. I didn't think you would, but it was for reassurance. You know… like what if you did? I wouldn't stand a chance. You'd kill me."

"No offense, but if I was gonna kick your ass, I would've kicked it the night before when you were all in my face, Stephanie." I'm starting to escalate… "I exercise RESTRAINT with the three of you, BECAUSE you're my friends. I'm not just going to haul off and beat the shit out of any of you, because LORD KNOWS I COULD if I wanted to. The only one I would even have a SMIGDE of trouble with would probably be Leah, and even SHE would be easy for me. If I was going to fuck you up, I would've BEEN done it… and that goes for all of you." I use the back of my hand and wipe some sweat off my nose. I started sweating, the angrier I got. "I'm sorry for snapping out like that, but it just pisses me off how you guys just assumed that I would fight you if I got a little bit mad. I wasn't even mad in that bathroom. I was terrified, not mad."

"You were scared? Of… of us?" Heather's eyebrow raises up.

"DUH!" I bawl my hand up in a fist and lightly knock on her forehead. "You guys were crowding me! What'd you think I was gonna do? Flip out and get my ass kicked by the whole cheer squad or back into a corner and hope to god that I didn't cry too hard?" I shake my head at the three of them. "I fucking wonder about you guys…" I'm honestly getting to be okay with it. I'm not too mad at them anymore. All I really wanted was for them was for them to show that they were truly, sincerely sorry… and I think they are. While I don't trust them anymore and I would still happily choose to hang out with April over them, I'm not angry or holding a grudge. They're just immature, and I'd like to think that if they were older and less narrow-minded, they wouldn't have treated me so poorly. "I'm not mad at you guys, and I don't hate you…" I crack a smile at them. "But you can keep showering me with gifts and stuff, if you want." I wink at them.

"…So you're seriously not mad at us?" Steph leans forward. I shake my head.

"…We got our Jojo back?" Leah asks.

I squint one eye and think about how to phrase this. "…Sorta. It's just gonna take her a while to feel comfortable around you guys again, but yeah… you got your Jojo back." I shrug my shoulders. "I just figure… it's not entirely you guys' fault that Lucy and her friend were bitches. Plus, it's not like a room full of girls have never seen a pair of boobs before, I guess."

"Let me just say…" Heather perks up a little bit at my last comment. "That I'm totally gay after that." The three of them laugh after she says that, but I don't. I'm not entirely sure what she's talking about yet. "Will you be my girlfriend, Jo?" I look at her like she's crazy. I'm dying right now, Heather's so weird. "I seriously want you to leave Alex and date me. Aaron will just have to deal with sharing me. Because I'm totally gay after that."

"After what? After seeing my boobs?" I start to laugh a little bit too. "You're such a little weirdo, Heather."

Leah and Steph are laughing so hysterically that it's making me laugh too. Leah holds her sides and starts talking through her laughter. "No Jo… you're calling her weird, but she's so serious. She's SO serious. This is all me and Steph have been hearing about. I swear she didn't have enough balls to ask you out, but she just did… and she's serious."

"…Is she bi?" I again, wrinkle my eyebrows and look at the two of them for answers. I giggle, for the fact that I can't hold back laughter. Leah and Steph can't stop laughing long enough to give me an answer, so instead, I turn to Heather. "Are you bi? I'm so serious, Heather… Are you freaking bi?" I cover my hand over my mouth and laugh so hard that I snort.

Heather playfully rolls her eyes. "No! You're just hot!"

"Oh yeah right, Heather. You're so bisexual it's not even funny." Leah taps Heather on her shoulder and puts her head down to laugh some more.

"….Bi-curious, maybe that's the word." Steph purses her lips together to hold back her laughter but she's unsuccessful at it.

"I am NOT bisexual, guys." Heather covers her face with her hands and laughs too. "I'm… josexual."

"…I have my own sexuality?"

Heather nods. "It's like bisexual, but for you only… get it? I like penis… I LOVE penis, actually. But I wouldn't mind dating a girl… if that girl was you. Get it? I'm not bisexual, I'm josexual."

I just shake my head. She's a mess. "Um… while I'm flattered by the offer, I'm not sure my boyfriend is up for sharing me… so with that being said, I have to decline being your girlfriend. Love you, though." I lower my voice. "Plus, I'm not gay."

"That's okay…. that's fine." She winks at me.

"…Thanks for being so understanding." I awkwardly laugh after the end of that sentence.

"Oh, no… I wasn't talking about the fact that you declined my offer. I was saying that it's okay that you're not gay. You don't have to be gay…"

"Oh my god, Heather! Shut up!" I playfully slap her on her arm. "This is so awkward… are you serious right now?"

She just laughs. "Of course I'm not serious, Jo." She takes a sip of her water and starts talking again. "No, you are totally hot. And if you were gay, I'd be gay too. I'd totally date the shit out of you, and your boobs are amazing. And if you were to leave Alex, Aaron would have to learn how to share me, because me and you would date. I'm just joking… unless you're into that sorta thing."

"I'm about to strangle you." I throw my head back and laugh so hard that my stomach hurts. "You're such a lesbian… and I'm flattered that you think of me like that. But…can you just settle for making me your Woman Crush Wednesday on Instagram? And I'll be nice enough to return the favor… okay?" Leah and Steph are all looking at Heather the way I'm looking at her… like she's hilarious. I love Heather's weirdness so much.

Heather throws her hands up. "Like you guys don't have those certain people that you'd go lesbian for." She points at Leah first. "You told me and Steph that you would be a lesbian for Megan Fox."

"But that's… Megan Fox. Not Jo…" Leah shakes her head.

Heather points at Steph next. "And you said you'd go gay for Beyonce."

"Like Leah said, that's BEYONCE. Not Jo."

"So my woman crush just so happens to be Jo… so what?"

I put my hand up. "…If it makes you feel better Heather… If me and Alex don't work out… I'll try really hard to turn gay for you. No promises, but I'll try." I tap her on her shoulder just so she knows that I know she's joking and I'm not taking any offense to that. I'm honestly flattered that she finds me attractive. It's a little weird, yes… but Heather's weird in general.

"You should kiss her, Jo. Make her life worth living and kiss her." Steph grabs her drink and winks at me.

"I'm not kissing Heather…. I don't wanna give her any…false hope." I pick up a slice of bread from the basket in the middle of the table and pull a piece off. "Plus, my kisses have been known to kill. Not sure if anybody could handle them. Not even Alex can handle them." I slip the piece of bread in my mouth and chew it. They look at me like I just gave them some juicy information. I swallow my bread so I can talk. "I do this little thing… with my tongue. Where I grab his tongue with mine, then I run my teeth along it when he takes it out. It drives him wild." _Part of me feels so… guilty. I feel so weird forgiving them. I really, really did miss the girls. They were my best friends… but I feel so guilty sitting here, actually letting myself have fun with them when they treated me so badly. But I'm taking the high road, like April taught me. I think I'm maturing…_

"Oooooh… Jo's a freak." Leah giggles and nudges me with her elbow.

"You know, you know." I wave my hand at her and laugh a little too. I slip another piece of bread in my mouth. "You think we're gonna be outta here by seven? I'm supposed to go over April's at eight and I have to get home and take a shower and stuff." _Through all of this though, I feel like I still don't want to choose them. I missed them and I love them and all, but in all seriousness, I still can't wait to go to April's. I feel…different. Stronger, maybe. I've been feeling different ever since the court hearing. But it's a good different… like I can think clearly._

"We should be out of here by then." Steph starts to give me a hug but she stops herself after a minute. "Can we…hug?" I slowly nod my head. "…There's one more thing we should apologize for, Jo."

"What's that?" I ask, wrapping my arm around her to reciprocate her hug.

I watch as Steph gives Heather and Leah a certain look and they're clearly all on the same page. Steph lets me go and holds my hands. "…We… we underestimated you. And we want to apologize for that." I squint my eyes to show her that I'm clueless as to what she's talking about. "We… we just thought that… since you were…. Smart and pretty and quiet and…"

Leah takes over for her because she's stuttering too much. "We misjudged you. The three of us though that since you were shy and quiet and smart and really reserved and private that you wouldn't really fit in with us. So… we… we thought that we would have to get you to act like us. But we were wrong." She puts her arm around me too. "The real Jo… the one that we didn't create?" I reciprocate Leah's hug too. "…She's pretty awesome too."

"Even without the belly button piercing and the cocky attitude. We like shy, quiet, sweet Jo better." Heather joins in the group hug.

I crack a soft, toothless smile and lie my head against their heads. "…Thanks guys." Just as the quiet moment between us ends, my phone buzzes in my back pocket and scares the hell out of me. I jump and grab it. I sigh hard. "Who's texting me…." I mumble.

"Oh yeah, and Jo… can you give April my number when you go over her house? While I'm on a roll with making amends with everybody, I'd like to apologize to her too." Steph kinda sounds like she's sincere. "…You kinda made me realize what a shitty thing I did."

"Yeah, sure…" I unlock my phone and check my text messages. One from Shane, two from Alex, one from April and one from mom. I really tried to ignore them, but the text from mom just came in and just made me forget about ignoring them. I check through all five of them.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**4:45 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Shane: ** j, tell leah 2 text me back when u get this

**5:55 p.m.**

**Me: **i just told her.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**5:15 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **hey baby. Just wanted 2 let u know that I miss n luv u.

**5:20 p.m.**

**Alex: **oh & if ur still staying over kepners later, let me know. me and jackson mite come over 2 visit u guys

**5:56 p.m.**

**Me: **hey. i miss you too baby boy. sorry i took so long to text you back, i'm busy with the girls and stuff. but yeah, i'm still staying over april's later. you should really come visit me, i'd like that.

**Alex: **ok ill be over. have fun with ur friends. Love u girl

**Me: **i love you too xoxo

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**4:46 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**April: **Hey what time are you coming over tonight? & would you want food from Pizza Hut or Dominos?

**6:00 p.m.**

**Me: **hey! i'm at benihana right now, so i don't think i'll be much hungry later, but if i had to choose, definitely pizza hut. :D

**April: **okay! oh, & how did your court hearing go? are you alright?

**Me: **i'll tell you all about when i come over later.

**April: **okay. see you later!

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**5:53 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Mommy: **What are u doing babygirl?

**6:01 p.m.**

**Me: **i'm sitting here waiting for our chef to cook our food. why?

**Mommy: **I just got a call from the magistrate.

**Me: **ohh. well, what's that mean?

**Mommy: **the jury reached a verdict…


	50. What Makes You Happy

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**8:56 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Alex: **u stayn ovr apes?

**Me: **yep. she might invite you and jackson over too.

**Alex: **I kno. Me n jax are 2gther right now. tell ape jax said 2 txt him plz

**Me: **okay. what are you and jackson doing?

**Alex: **watching tv n drinking a beer nothing much

**Me: **okay. well the jury reached a verdict so i want to talk to you about that when you get over here.

**Alex: **I g2g. talk 2 u later

**Me: **alex?

**Me: **okay? bye?

**Me: **alex i wasn't done talking to you.

**Alex: **leav me alone j.

**Me: **?

**Me: **why are you mad at me?

**Alex: **I cant talk rn

**Me: **wtf?

**Me: **:(

**Me: **i love youuu.

I sigh and put my phone down on the coffee table without any other words to him. I don't really know what I did to make him mad, but I trust that he'll tell me about it afterwards… maybe. I pick up the bottle of nail polish I was using on April and tune into what she was just talking about. "You never did explain to me what you meant by Leah wanting to kill you because of the whole 'Shane' thing. Because I'm really confused. I thought you and Shane were only friends and you made that clear to Leah. The whole story honestly just doesn't make sense to me." She looks up from my feet with confusion written clearly across her face. "Why would Leah want to kill you just for being friends with Shane?" She dips the brush back into the bottle of purple nail polish and resumes brushing it on my toenails. I've only been here for about an hour, and I'm already having the best time of my life. It's funny how April can do that to me. Just being around her gives me the ability to be in a better mood, and honestly? That's crazy to me.

I hold her foot straight so I can steadily paint her toenails green. At this point though, I'm just a little bit confused. I've been shown two different sides of having "girl time." On one hand, I've been shown that girl time means pigging out with your friends, talking about gross things and gushing over Pretty Little Liars. On the other hand, it seems like girl time is painting toenails, having meaningful conversations and just having downright fun. While I appreciate both sides, I must admit that I like this side just a little bit more. "Because Shane doesn't want to be…just friends." I twist the brush back inside the bottle of nail polish and throw my head back, getting the chills when my hair falls to the middle of my back. "You don't understand, Ape. Shane's been my best friend for FOREVER. And… I guess we've been...more than friends at some point, and Shane can't let it go. He's in love with me."

"What do you mean by that?" She puts her nail polish away too. "I'm sorry, but I have to ask. Did you sleep with Shane?"

"No." I pull my feet away from her and look at the nice job she did on my toenails. "Look Ape, I've done a lot of things with Shane that I wish I didn't, looking back at it. So… I dunno, I'm kind of a bitch to him. I like…" I put my tongue in my cheek just thinking about what I'm about to admit. I wouldn't be caught dead admitting this to Shane, though. "I tell him that I don't remember shit when I really do. I fake like everything he remembers, I don't. And it's kinda rude, but I mean… why would I want to relive the things I'm not proud of?! So if I act like I don't know what he's talking about, he just shuts up about it."

April starts laughing hard and genuinely at that. "You ain't right for that, Jo. That's so mean. The poor guy probably thinks about it all the time and you're basically just like 'Nope, never happened.' You're so messed up for that. And you're acting like you guys have done some big bad things that you don't wanna remember. Whatever you've done can't be that bad if you haven't slept with him. You're so messed up."

I giggle too. "Look…I really don't remember some of the things he talks about, but the things I do remember, I'm just like… shut up." I put my hand over my face so I can laugh a little harder. "And we have done some pretty bad things together. We didn't have sex, but everything except the actual… bang bang thing? I've done that with Shane. And I do mean EVERYTHING…"

"You guys made out?"

I nod my head. "Like…twice. We've kissed like… four times total, but the make out stuff was only like twice. We used to kiss a lot when we were babies, but they were innocent kisses… like brother and sister kisses. But in like… sixth grade or something like that, he kissed me seriously. And I flipped out. But we made out hardcore in seventh grade for the first time, because I was freaked out by the thought of a boy putting his tongue in my mouth so he just broke me of the fear or something. And then we made out again when we were like thirteen." I shrug. "Whatever, it's no big deal to me but it is to him."

"…So when you say you've done everything with Shane… did he like… give you oral and stuff too?" She seems really interested by this, which is fine by me but it's a little humbling at the same time. "What all have you seriously done with Shane?"

"Okay, oral…no." I start counting off on my fingers. "I've never done that with ANYBODY. And he didn't do it to me, either. I think that's a little far. But basically everything else is a yes." I put one finger up every time I name something. "I've made out with him, I've given him a…hand job, once. Just once. Um… he fingered me. He kissed all over my boobs once…. And I think that's about it. Basically, everything I've ever been curious about… I tried it with Shane. And he like… won't let that go. At all."

"Oh my god… you and Shane? I don't know, I guess I can kind of see that. You're Shane's type and all. I thought you guys were a cute couple before I even knew that you guys were just best friends. I could totally see you guys together."

"Shane doesn't have a type, honestly. If you're a girl, Shane will like you."

"So he's not like… partial to…" Her voice lowers into a whisper. "White girls?"

I start laughing at that. "I mean… I don't know. I guess you could say that." I look up at the ceiling and think about Shane and what his type might possibly be. "Yeah, he kinda is, isn't he? He's not partial towards one kind of girl, though. He lost his virginity to a mixed girl. His first real girlfriend was Hispanic. Her name was Elena and she was a bitch. Um…He thought Steph was cute for a really long time. And he likes Leah… and he likes me. Plus, he crushed on Cristina. I don't think he's partial to one kind of girl, but I do think… that he prefers girls with long legs."

"You know, it's really cool how you and Shane have each other. He's a good friend to you, Jo. I mean, despite all the crap you just admitted to having to deal with when it comes to him, you guys are really good together. You need to keep friends like that. Trust me. You don't wanna lose somebody like that."

"…I think I already lost him, honestly." I sigh and look down at the couch cushions. "I don't know if we're gonna move past this. It's just always gonna be hard. Look, I know now that he…likes me as more than a friend. And it's gonna be hard to get past that, you know? And I then, I don't feel the same way about him that he feels about me, so that's causing a rift. ….He didn't even come to my hearing. He's pissed at me. So you know, what can I do? I hope that we can get past this, but I don't know if we can. I miss him as my best friend but I'm starting to think that the only way that I could get him to stop being mad at me is if I dated him. I don't want to do that though. Because how fair is that? That's a bitch move too. I'd be dating him to keep him from being mad at me…not because I love him or because I'm really interested in him. And I'm starting to get really worried April. Because it's like… when I'm lying in bed at night…thinking before I go to sleep, I keep thinking about ways that I could make it up to him… possibly keep him from being mad at me anymore…" I sigh. April puts her hand on my shoulder. "I wanna make him happy. Because I'm tired of Shane being so upset all the time. And I keep going back to… maybe I should? You know… just to make him happy. I won't have to break up with Alex, I won't have to deal with feeling guilty, Shane will be happy and it'll only be for like… an hour."

"Doing what, Jo? Dating Shane? …I don't think Alex is cool with sharing…Even if it is just Shane he's sharing with."

"I meant… should I…." I move my hair out of my face and roll my eyes. "Should I have sex with Shane? Just once? So he can get all his feelings out for me, I won't have to deal with him hating my guts… maybe that'd help. Because that's really the only solution I can come up with." I stare up at the ceiling. "I mean, seriously. I've been trying to avoid him, but that just makes me upset. I've been trying to act like he never even told me that he likes me, but that's not doing anything but piss him off more. I can't pretend like I like him back when I don't. So the only thing I can think of is having sex with him. I don't want to, but… at this point, I just wanna make Shane happy. He's my best friend and I just want him to be happy."

"Okay, but you're thinking about him." She combs her long, slender fingers through my hair just like a comb and starts to comfort me. "Jo, that won't make you happy. It might make Shane happy, but think about how you'll feel. You'll feel like crap for even doing it. And who's to say that Shane will even be happy? What if you're just assuming that sleeping with you would make Shane's life worth living? What if that just makes it worse?"

"…Okay, then what do you suggest, Ape? I gotta get Shane back. He's my best friend. He's been my best friend for as long as I can remember and I don't want to lose him anymore. I… I don't want to have to choose between Shane and Alex." I put my knees up and rest my chin on them. "I don't want to choose between them, because I love them both… but I have to really think… I think Alex would lose. Because Shane's been my best friend for YEARS… But at the same time, I love Alex more than I've ever even loved anybody…"

"I think if Shane really did love you as much as he says he does, he would see that he's killing you." She stops playing with my hair and leans forward to look me in my eyes. "You know Jo… you should stop living to please everyone and start living to please yourself. Screw Alex, screw Shane. Do what makes YOU happy."

"But April, that's just it." I look back at her. "Shane makes me happy and Alex makes me happy… I can't choose between my best friend and my boyfriend. And I REALLY don't want Alex and Shane to fight over me, because lord knows I'm NOT worth that. And not even to mention, I JUST got Leah to stop hating my guts over Shane." I sigh. "Whatever, I don't even know. I don't even want to talk about it anymore. It clearly doesn't make a difference, because Alex is mad at me…"

"Why?"

"I don't even freaking know. He texted me and said him and Jackson are together and Jackson said that he needs you to text him or whatever. Then he was like… I gotta go. And that's it. I don't even know why he's mad at me. I just wanted to tell him about the hearing…" I sigh again. "I can't stay in anyone's good graces for long."

"...I know exactly what you need." April stands up on her feet and pulls me up right along with her. "Come on… I know what you need." She holds my hand and starts dragging me. "Let's go, come on…"

* * *

"Just one… and you have to SIP it." I watch with curious eyes as she forcefully pulls the cork out of the top of the bottle. "I don't want Alex getting mad at me and I don't want to bear the burden of getting you all messed up." She pulls down two tall glasses from the cupboard and puts them on the counter. She slowly tilts the bottle into the glasses and clear, bubbly liquid spills out into them. "Plus, my parents can't notice that we got into the liquor cabinet." She slides the smaller of the two glasses over to me. "You have to SIP it, Jo… okay? Don't go guzzling it all down in one gulp. I don't want you sloppy drunk and falling all over the place."

"Okay." I whisper to her, nodding my head and cupping my glass in the palm of my hand. Honestly? I've never drank before. I've had a sip of beer here and there before at family functions where my grandma didn't really care, but I've never drunken hardcore liquor before. I guess there's nobody else I'd rather drink with than April for my first time. I tilt the glass up to my lips and take a small sip. I softly smack my lips together to see if I like the taste. It's not bad… it tastes pretty good. "What is this stuff?"

"Arbor Mist… if you're not careful, this stuff will screw you all up." She takes a dainty sip of her own glass and turns around to the refrigerator. I run my finger along the rim of my glass, and quickly, while April's back is turned, I down the entire glass of wine. Sneakily, I turn up the bottle of wine and refill my glass so it doesn't appear that I've drunken any. She hands me a can of Coca-Cola from the fridge and grabs the bottle of wine. "Come on… we're gonna do drink downstairs so my parents don't smell it." I nod once and follow her down the stairs that lead to her basement.

"Did you tell Jackson and Alex to come over later?" I take the first seat I see on the couch beside the fireplace and cross my legs. April sits next to me on the couch and flicks on the TV. I take a steady, gradual sip of my glass of wine and put the glass down on the coffee table in front of us. "Because I'd be totally cool if it was just us…"

"Yeah, but I told them not to come until after midnight. I gotta give everyone in my house time to go to sleep first." She twists the cork off the bottle of wine again and offers me a refill once she sees that my glass is empty. "So um….how about the court hearing and stuff? You never did say how all that stuff went…"

"Oh…" Swallowing another mouthful of wine, I put my glass down and hiccup. I'm starting to feel a little funny… "Um… well I'm guessing it went okay." Nothing's funny, but an inadvertent smile swipes across my lips. "J…" I hiccup again. "Excuse me." I clear my throat. "The… the jury…." I blink my eyes hard. "They found him guilty of… of… rape? Yeah. They found him guilty of first… first degree rape. First degree sexual assault, aggravated assault…something else…" Again, nothing's funny but I giggle.

"….How many glasses did you drink, Jo?" April crosses her arms and looks at me like she's my mother or something.

"…Three?"

"Alex is going to kill me…"

"Ooh… Alex." Which reminds me… he's mad at me. I grab my phone off the couch cushion next to me and unlock it. I need to find out why he's mad at me.

"NO JO!" April tries to grab my phone off me, but I gently resist her. "No drunk texting! That'll get you broken up with! No… No drunk texts. Gimme your phone…"

"Move, Ape." I mumble. I'm not even drunk. I still know what I'm doing.

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**10:04 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **why are you pissed at me?

When I put my phone down to wait for a text back, I look over at April. She's busily texting somebody. I secretly slide over and take her phone out of her hands. "Who are you texting, Ape?" I look through her texts. She's texting Alex too….

**Sat, Nov 14, 2013**

**10:06 p.m.**

**iMessage**

**April: **Alex look whatever texts you get from Jo, just… forget about them ok? She's a little tipsy right now….

"April, why the freak would you tell him that I'm drunk? I'm not…"

"Yes, you are Jo…. and your boyfriend's gonna kill me for getting you drunk."

* * *

**A/N: **yes, i know the chapter was short. sorry for that. but i will be more in depth with Jo and April's sleepover next chapter, and i will explain why Alex is "mad" at Jo. & in case you're wondering, i think this story will be over in about ten more chapters...maybe less.


	51. Not At All What I Wanted

"I'm out again…" I slowly inch my glass back across the table to April so she can, in moderation, pour more wine into my glass. The only thing that's in my memory from anything that happened more than an hour ago is me, downing an entire four glasses of wine and convincing April that I'm fine and she should drink with me. I'm not drunk or anything, and neither is April. It just took a lot of convincing for her to finally give in to letting me drink with her. Apparently, she feels like I'm her little sister and she was uncomfortable with getting her little sister drunk. I guess it worked out in her favor, because I'm not even feeling the wine and I don't think she is either. I've never had more than a sip of beer before, by the way. I know I keep reiterating that, but I find it necessary to say that. I used to be allowed to take little sips of fancy, expensive tasting wines and beers at family reunions and church functions with my grandmother. I've never actually guzzled glass after glass after glass of cheap wine.

"That's totally enough for you, Jo. This is like… your sixth one." A nervous giggle passes through April's lips and she turns the heavy, misty, glass bottle up and tops off my wine glass. She hastily puts the bottle back on the coffee table and crosses her legs. "I just…." She starts talking, but her sentence trails off a bit. "I just can't…sit around waiting for… for Jackson to get his act together, you know?" She flops her head back against the couch cushion and giggles, which, in turn, makes me giggle as well. "The way I see it, when you get together with somebody, you're either going to marry them or break up with them. And I'm not… I'm not wrong for wanting him to want to marry me, am I?"

"No…" I shake my head and bust out in unwarranted laughter. "That's scary as fuck to think about though…. If what you say is true, I mean." I take a hefty sip of wine and put my glass back down on the table. I feel a belch brewing in the pits of my stomach. "Guess me and Alex are gonna break up sooner or later." I look up at the finished ceiling of her basement. "Can't say I didn't see it coming though…"

"Why do you think you're gonna break up? Don't count yourself out, Joey. High school sweethearts sometimes get married and have kids together. And Alex is faithful. I thought I told you to have faith in your relationship."

I pick my head up and look straightforward at the television screen. One of the Friday the Thirteenth movies is playing on the TV but I haven't paid enough attention to know exactly which one it is. "I don't want to get married to anybody. And I don't want to have children." I pick up my wine glass and down the last chug of it. "I wish people would just be okay with that, you know? Like, why does that have to be a goal for every relationship? If a relationship works, why do you have to get married and put a title on it? If it works… and you're happy… why do you have to get married? Because the MINUTE…no, the SECOND you put a title on it, everything just gets so screwed up…"

"But Alex wants to get married someday… he told us that. In our senior seminar class, we had to write a paper about where we see ourselves in ten years. He wants to get married and have a baby someday." Nonchalantly, she leans forward and refills my glass. The bottle of wine should be damn near empty by now.

"Too bad." I use my tongue to slowly lap up a little bit of wine from my freshly refilled glass. "I don't really mean that. I mean, I mean it… but I don't…mean it, mean it. Get it?" I look over at her face, and it makes me again, bust out in laughter at something that's probably not even as funny as I just made it out to be. "Put it this way…" Again, I look up at the ceiling. "I'm not opposed to spending the rest of my life with Alex. But I'm sixteen, so it's a lot to think about. I love him in that…" My mind is just racing, running fast with thoughts that I can say but I don't know how to describe them. "I never get tired of him." For the first time in about an hour, the tone of my voice isn't at all playful. It's serious and serene and I'm feeling the same way. "I never get tired of him. I always want to talk to him. He's always on my mind, too." I look at April and she's listening to me intently. "Like… he's the first thing on my mind when I wake up in the morning and the last thing I think about before I go to sleep. And I can't sleep, either. I sit up all night wondering what he's thinking about before he falls asleep. And I worry about him. I worry about if he's sleeping at night. I worry about if he's hurting or whatever. And then someone says his name…and I smile…and blush…and immediately get those little butterflies in my tummy. And I always, always, always want to be around him. I always want him. And I miss him. Even when I'm with him, I miss him. And it makes me want to throw up…or choke myself…or both. I'm in love with him…but I'm too scared to tell him that I am, because…" I move my hair out of my face. "What if he leaves, Ape? Then I got my head all mixed up in this boy, my heart's wide open, my world revolves around him and then… boom. He leaves, I'm crushed, I miss him and I don't even know how I'd ever be able to love somebody as much as I love him. So it… it comes off as, I don't like him that much, I don't want to be bothered with him…but in reality, he's all I've ever wanted. He's the only thing good in my life right now, you know?"

"…Yeah, I know." Just like my voice, April's is serious and stern. She scoots over so she's closer to me on the couch and forces me to lie my head on her shoulder. "But think about it, Jo… think about how terrible this world would be if everyone was afraid to love somebody. You can't sit around scared, because you don't know if somebody loves you the way you love them. The truth is…" She puts her arm around my shoulder and puts her forehead against the top of my head. "Nobody will ever love you back…in the exact same way you love them. And we have to open ourselves up to that kind of thing, because we just have to accept the fact that our feelings will always be stronger for that one person. But the person that you're stuck around, hopelessly in love with? That's the person worth opening up for. Whether you're pretty, ugly… successful, a bum. A bitch, a nice person… that person? Well… they'll still think that the sun rises and shines out of your ass. But you have to have a clear mind when you're thinking about these things at the same time. Your mind's not clear right now… you're still thinking about Shane."

"Look, sad as I am to say it…" I grab a lock of her fiery red hair and twist it around my finger to avoid making eye contact with her. "Shane's not even a factor." I shrug my shoulders as I finally come to grips with that within myself. "He doesn't cross my mind. I mean, he does…obviously. But not in the way that Alex crosses my mind. It's like… Alex crosses my mind and I get all giggly and happy. But then Shane crosses my mind and it's more like a… "oh yeah, I gotta deal with you too" kind of thing." That makes April laugh, and out of pure obligation, I laugh too. "No, but seriously. I feel SO bad that he feels one way about me but I feel another. And he says it doesn't bother him anymore, but Shane's a liar and I can see right through him. I'm killing him…and I can't be responsible for that. He's my best friend. He's been there with me through a lot of bullshit, you know? But I'm killing him, and knowing that I'm killing him is killing me."

"So you think that…sleeping with him will solve all of that?" She slides her face over a little and kisses my temple. "Honey… you're sadly mistaken if you think that sleeping with Shane will solve any of your problems. It'll make you feel so much worse, Jojo…"

"…Yeah, but what other options do I have? April, I'm drowning here. It's like… I'm drowning. Then Alex is my lifeline and he brings me back to shore and I'm cool for a while. But then I go back home and see Shane all mopey and depressed and I'm drowning again." I rub my eyes. "I just DON'T KNOW what to do. I thought, okay… I'm just gonna ignore it. I'm going to ignore the fact that he told me he loves me. I'm gonna forget the fact that he said all those things to me, but we're still gonna be besties. That doesn't work. All that does is make him madder at me for acting like he never admitted it. He literally gets pissed at me. So then, I just ignore HIM. I ignore him and then he gets all sad… and he doesn't come to my hearing and he only texts me when he needs me to do something for him. What other choice do I have?"

"I don't know, Jo. But I do know that sleeping with that boy isn't going to do anything but make you feel lousy and make him go crazy. You'll mess SO many things up. And what about Alex? You're not even thinking about him…"

"I CAN'T THINK ABOUT HIM, APRIL." I roughly push her away from me and stand up from the couch. "See, this is why I can't ever fucking…" My hands, violently start shaking and trembling. "Nobody ever fucking understands…I just want somebody to get it…and nobody does." I bawl my hands up in fists to try to get them to stop shaking so much and take a deep breath. When I look back over at the couch, I see April's face a mixture of confused and hurt, but what really gets me is how I see that she's rubbing a spot on her arm. _You freaking idiot. You hurt her! _"…I should…I should go." I can see it on her face…she's afraid of me. _Oh man…you just lost another one. _

"No…c…come on." She stands up from the couch and walks over to me with confidence… like she's not afraid. "I don't want you to leave. We can talk, Jo… It's alright. You scared me for a second there, but it's cool. You don't have to leave." She grabs my hands, which makes them stop shaking. "I…I get it. I'm getting it. I'm listening and I'm getting it. Come on, we can talk. Where'd you leave off? Shane, right? You think that sleeping with Shane is the answer…" She talks me down off the ledge that I was just on. I reluctantly sit back down on the couch and let her go back to holding me. _Shane's the only person that's ever been able to do this to me. _"You think sleeping with Shane is the answer, and you can't think about Alex? Why can't you think about Alex?"

"…I'm just… juggling. I can't think about Shane when I'm with Alex and I can't think about Alex when I'm with Shane." I lean up and grab her arm so I can look at the mark I put on it. It's just a little red mark, but I can tell that it's going to bruise. I'm so sorry… "If I think about Alex, I'll screw something up. I mean… of COURSE I don't want to…cheat on Alex. I don't want to hurt him… I love him. Why would I hurt someone that I love? Which is the ONLY reason I'm hesitant to actually do it. Alex is the reason I'm so hesitant to sleep with Shane…he's the ONLY reason. I hurt him bad when I kissed Jason so it's like… I would never just sleep with Shane maliciously. It would just be… to settle things. I don't know…"

"I still don't think that's the right idea." Once again, she twists the cork off the wine bottle and fills up both our glasses for the last time. The wine bottle is empty now. "I don't actually have any other advice to offer you, but I don't think that you're really thinking. Say… say you broke up with Alex, okay? Say you broke up with him…and then you slept with Shane. So you wouldn't have cheated on him with Shane, that's settled. But then, you're not being fair to Shane. You shouldn't sleep with somebody just because you don't have anything else to do. Trust me… it doesn't work that way."

"How would you know?" I turn my wine glass up to my lips and sip. "Jackson's the only person you ever slept with, isn't he? So it's not like you would even consider something like this."

"I just know what it's like to have to work towards something…give it all %110 and have it all snatched away because of one minor lapse of judgment." She puts her head back against a couch cushion and sighs. "It's like… you wait and you wait and you wait…and one moment can just…defeat the entire purpose, you know? Ever since I was little, I just knew that I wanted to wait for marriage. Wait for the right guy to sleep with. It was supposed to be special for me. And that's how it should be. You should want to give yourself to your husband…shouldn't you?"

"…Well gee, I don't know Ape. I'm not exactly a saint…" I guzzle the last little bit of wine in my glass and burp loud and obnoxiously, not even bothering to excuse myself. "I lost my virginity when I was fourteen years old and it wasn't exactly special, know what I mean?"

She shrugs her one shoulder like she's agreeing with me. "Right, and you obviously have regrets for that." I wrinkle my eyebrow at that statement and my nostrils involuntarily flare up. "Not what I meant." She puts her hand up to silence anything I was about to say. "I'm not judging you for that, Jo. It's whatever. Kids have sex, it's not that big of a deal. I'm just saying that you're decent and you know that losing your virginity wasn't special. I mean… I totally relate to that. Not saying that the first time I had sex with Jackson wasn't special, because it was… it just felt… unsatisfying. But not because he didn't know what he was doing, but because… he wasn't a virgin and I was… and I really wanted him to be one. I wish we were each other's firsts…"

"I get that." From the corner of my eye, I see the wall start moving. Quickly, I snap my head over to look at it. It's not moving when I look at it from a frontal view. I blink twice and clear my throat. "I lost my virginity for all the wrong reasons." I look down at my empty wine glass and stare at the tiny bit of clear liquid that remains at the bottom of it. "I wanted to do it, I guess. But it was kind of a mix of me wanting to do it and see what it was like, and then I wanted to do it to get it over with. Shane lost his, so he was always talking about it and then he… did something, and I was curious after that, and then it happened like…a week later or something."

"What'd he do?"

I don't know why, but I immediately start laughing. "Nothing. It was stupid, really…" April tilts her head and looks at me through hooded eyes, like I had better tell her or else. She can't keep a straight face with me, and neither can I for that matter. We both bust out in hysterical, boisterous laughter. "We were talking about it. For the first time since it happened, we were finally really talking about it. Him losing his virginity, I mean. We were talking about it and I asked him what it felt like. Ad he couldn't explain it to me…so he showed me. That's all."

"I thought you said you never slept with him!"

"I didn't! With his fingers, Ape…fingers." I close my eyes and another round of hard laughter comes out of my mouth. "Poor kid's been reeling off that for the longest time. He'd be so mad if he knew that I actually _do _remember those things." I purse my lips together to stop myself from laughing. "No, but seriously… I should sit him down and tell him that I do remember everything one day."

"That might actually make your friendship better… if you stop lying to him, I mean." She rubs her eyes and picks her cell phone up. "…We've got one hour until the boys get here." She stands up off the couch and stumbles backwards before catching herself and regaining her balance using the arm of the couch. "Crap… I'm tipsier than I thought." She giggles quite loudly and starts cleaning up the empty wine bottle and the empty glasses.

"Lightweight. I'm not even feeling anything." I stick my tongue out at her and stand up to help her. All of a sudden, my legs turn a little weak and I stumble too. I'm not drunk, it's just been a while since I've put my weight on my legs. The floor is moving a little bit, so I rub my eyes to clear my vision.

"…Oh Jo… you're so drunk." She brings one of her arms up to her face, since her hands are full, and laughs into the crook of it. "You're drunk off your ass… and Alex is gonna kill me."

"I'm not drunk…" I pick up two empty paper plates that we ate pizza off of. "I feel fine." The two plates slip right through my fingers, crash down onto the floor and make a little mess of crust and pizza sauce and pepperoni that I picked off mine. "Shit." I look down at my mess and just laugh. "How the hell am I…" I swallow a wad of spit in my mouth and cough. "April. How am I supposed to clean this up?"

"Just leave it. I'll grab it. You need to lie down… you're so drunk." She sweeps her hair out of her face and chuckles. "Lie down for a minute… you can't handle your liquor and I don't want you puking all over the place."

"I'm…not drunk. I'm just…tired." I close my eyes for a really long time and find myself wobbling. "Do you have a mop? And paper…um… paperrrrrr….towels. I'm gonna clean this up…" I look down at the mess on the floor again and my hair falls in front of my face. I push it out of my way and hold it back. "I've been thinking about shavin' my head… what do you think?"

"I think you need to lie your little behind down and sober up before your boyfriend gets over here and cuts my head off for getting you drunk." She kneels down on her knees and starts cleaning up the mess I made. I kneel down next to her and help. I'm seriously okay. I'm not drunk. I would know if I was drunk. "If you get this messed up on Arbor Mist, I could never take you out to drink the hardcore stuff…"

"April, look at me." I tuck both parts of my hair behind my ears and look at her with a straight face. A smile is begging to crack through, but I won't let it. April looks at me, though. Her eyes are just slightly red-rimmed but her usual, deep green eyes look pleasant like they always do. She's smiling at me though, which is making it hard for me to keep a straight face. "Stop looking at me like that… Stoooooppp…" I look away from her and laugh. "I'm not drunk…. I feel fine. I feel normal."

"I'm making a mental note to never give you vodka or whiskey or tequila. Cheap wine does it for you." She finishes cleaning up my mess and stands up. "And you're only gonna get worse once this alcohol really settles in…" She dumps the paper plates and the rest of our garbage into a wastebasket in the corner next to the TV and takes my hand. "Come on… we're gonna go upstairs and lie down." I just nod my head at her, hardly listening to anything she's saying. "Firstly, because I'm too tipsy to baby you myself and secondly, I really don't need Alex to rage at me for this."

"But I'm okay…." I hold onto the railing and start climbing the steps to get back onto her first floor. My eyes start shaking again, so I stop walking for a moment and put my head down. Just like I've been doing for the last hour, I bust out in laughter. "How do you…. how do you…." My tongue feels like it's too big for my mouth, if that even makes sense. "How. Do you. … Nevermind." I scrape my teeth along my tongue. "My tongue feels weird…"

"You're unbelievably messed up." April laughs and shakes her head at me. "Just come on…"

* * *

**Sun, Nov 15, 2013**

**12:01 a.m.**

**iMessage**

**Me: **hey areu gusy still comng?

**12:02 a.m.**

**Alex: **?

**Me: **2aprils areudjgust coming?

**Me: **u & gjackson imean

**12:05 a.m.**

**Alex: **who is this?

**Me: **Jo?

**Alex: **jo doent txt abbreviatons n capitol lettrs. Who is this?

**12:06 a.m.**

**Me: **alex ist me. r u n jaxlson still coming ovr aprs?

**Me: **i don't fell good

**12:07 a.m.**

**Alex: **we'll b over give me a min.

**Me: **ok hury I miss u

**Alex: **not now j I g2g

**Me: **watevr.

* * *

"You can't get mad at me for having other obligations. I was coming to see you anyway, so it's not a crime that I was with other people. You diss me for your friends all the freaking time." He's standing in front of the door with that stupid, innocent look on his face that always gets him in my good graces, even when I'm completely pissed at him like I am right now. "I don't see why you're pissed in the first place. It's not like I completely blew you off… I was with my friends."

"You DID blow me off though, Alex. You DID." I have the worst headache of my life, and yelling at him is not making it any better. I feel so sick. Ever since I drank all that wine, I've been feeling so crummy and disgusting and the fact that I can't stand him right now is just making everything magnified by about ten. "And you know that I don't care if you're with your friends. I don't care what you do when you're not around me. What pisses me off is how you just blatantly tell me that you don't have time for me. If you're with your friends, why can't you just tell me that? How hard is it to send me a text that says, 'Hey babe, I'm busy with my friends right now but I'll text you back when I'm done.' How hard is that?!"

"You'd be pissed at me either way, Jo. I can't make you happy! You're really gonna sit here and look me in the eye and tell me that you wouldn't have a problem with that if I told you that I couldn't text you because I was with my friends? You'd have a problem with that, and you know you would. Jesus Christ. I don't even know why I do anything for you anymore. It's pointless… no matter what I do, I always do something wrong in your eyes. Are you ever freaking happy?" He glances back behind me at Jackson and April, which pisses me OFF.

"WE'RE ARGUING, ALEXANDER. WE'RE ARGUING AND YOU'RE NOT EVEN PAYING ATTENTION TO ME. LOOK AT ME, YOUR GIRLFRIEND!" I put my hand on his jaw and force him to look at me. "You act like Jackson and April have never seen you get cussed out before. LOOK AT ME." Speaking of Jackson and April, they're busy arguing amongst themselves. Something about how April should just forgive Jackson, but I'm not really listening. "You're pissing me off so bad right now. We're ARGUING and you don't even have the decency to look at me!"

"See?! You find a problem with everything, Jo!"

"It just shows that you don't pay attention to me! I'm yelling in your freaking FACE and you're not even paying attention! I don't know why I even expect for you to pay attention to me over texts. I clearly don't come first to you…" I take a step away from him and try to get my hands to stop shaking. Something about this argument feels…different. I don't know if it feels different because we both have alcohol in our systems, but for some reason…it feels different.

"Now you're putting words in my mouth. How does any of that translate into you not coming first to me?" He looks me in my eyes, just like I asked him to. "It's mighty screwed up how you can just pick and choose when I come first to you, but the second I do it… I get bitched at. You—"

"PICK AND CHOOSE?! WHEN DO I PICK AND CHOOSE, ALEX?!"

"All the freaking time! I NEVER come first to you, and I never have! You're always first in my book… you just came second TONIGHT. TONIGHT, THAT'S IT. I'm never first to you. And I'm supposed to just deal with that? But when I put you second, it's a big problem? It's always Leah, Heather, Stephanie, April, SHANE. Always. It's never ME. But it's always YOU. You're so selfish and I'm so tired of giving everything when you give me NOTHING. It's supposed to be 50/50 in a relationship… not 80/20."

"So you think I'm only giving 20? Alex, what the FUCK do you want from me?" I hold my shaking hands out and take another step back. "Do you want me to paint myself red and set off dynamite? How many times do I have to SAY it? I LOVE YOU… what else do you want from me?"

"I want you to mean it, Jo." I step back away from him some more and run my hands through my hair. I take a deep breath. I'm gonna blow up on him… I'm going to snap, I can feel it. And it's not gonna be good. It's best if he just shuts up… but of course, he opens his mouth. "When you say it, I want you to mean it. I don't want somebody that doesn't want me. I want you to tell me what in the HELL I'm doing with you, because at this point, I really don't know. You drive me fucking crazy… You give me a little, but you expect me to give you EVERYTHING. I was BUSY with my FRIENDS so you came second to me tonight… I'm SORRY but what the hell else can I do?"

"I NEEDED YOU!" I put my hands on his chest and push him, hard into the wall. "I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU ABOUT THE HEARING, THEY REACHED A VERDICT AND I CAN'T TALK TO MY BEST FRIEND ABOUT THIS SHIT, SO I WANTED TO TALK TO YOU…" I keep my hands on his chest so he can't move. "You picked a shitty time to put me second…"

"It's not like I wasn't coming! WHY can't you talk to me about all of this right now?! It's not like I was never going to come see you! Instead of bitching at me for no reason, you could be talking to me about everything you wanted to talk to me about right now. But no… you're flipping out and bitching and acting like a fucking idiot."

"I'm SO tired of fighting!" I clutch the fabric of his shirt in my hands and squeeze it. "All I do is fight! I go to school and fight with your jealous exes, I fight with you…I come home and I fight with Shane ABOUT you… I'm so SICK of fighting. Just…" I let his shirt go and grunt, to deal with the anger that's welling up inside of me. "I could kill you…"

"Well, we're never gonna get anywhere if you don't take Ross out of this whole equation." He rolls his eyes at me.

"He's my best fucking friend! And I LOST him over you! And I thought…. I thought, for the longest time, I thought that YOU would be worth it. I thought losing Shane over YOU would be worth it…but now I'm not even sure if it is."

"Oh, big WHOOP! The guy has a crush on you and you feed into his sick little fantasy!"

"IT'S MORE THAN THAT! I DON'T… I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DEAL WITH IT, ALEX! I'M CONTEMPLATING ON SLEEPING WITH HIM JUST TO SHUT BOTH OF YOU THE FUCK UP ONCE AND FOR ALL."

"…How would that shut me up?" He steps back so he can look at me from head to toe. "how in the blue hell would you…fucking another guy...shut me up?"

"Look, when you have to choose between someone your heart loves and someone you're your MIND is telling you to love, then you can judge me. Until then… you leave me the fuck alone."

"…You're a maniac." He shakes his head at me. "Everyone told me that you're crazy… but I can handle crazy. But… you're a different kind of crazy. You're nuts. And I'm sick of crazy chicks…"

I put my hand on my head and sigh. "…Alex." I take another deep breath. "Look, I'm…. I'm drunk right now, you're drunk right now… we just need to talk about this when we're sober. We both need a minute…"

"No." He shakes his head. "Drunk words…are sober words. Everything you're saying to me right now is what you've been DYING to say to me from day one." I can tell by the tone of his voice where this is going and I really, really, really don't want it to go there. Please don't let this go where I think it's gonna go. Please. "You're in love with him, Jo…. you are. I can see it in your eyes. You love him, and—"

I shake my head fast. "No, Alex… I don't. I don't…. it isn't like that. I swear I don't… I—"

"Yes you do." The look on his face says it all… he's crushed. "And that's… that's fine." He shrugs his shoulders, but I can tell that it's NOT fine. His eyes are so red-rimmed and I can tell that it's NOT from the beer in his system. It's from the fact that he wants to cry. "You need to figure out what you want. You need to take the time to figure out what you want. And I'm not gonna hinder you from doing that."

"Alex…don't do…don't. You're not thinking right now…"

"I'll um…" He scratches his head. "I'll see you around, I guess. I'm gonna go home and sleep this off. We can still be friends and stuff, but…"

"No. You're NOT breaking up with me. I'm not letting you… I'm not letting you. I want you. I want you…" I grab his hand and hold it. "Please… just give me another chance. I'll…. Do better. I'll… we…" He slides his hand out of mine and I frantically take it back. "Come on. We don't have to cuddle… you don't have to play with my hair, you don't have to hold me… we can have sex and I won't freak out. I promise… I promise. I don't want to lose you… I'm… I'm not sure about a lot of things, but I'm sure that I don't want to lose you…"

He gently snatches his hand away from me. "I'll see you around, Wilson."


	52. Too Far

**A/N: **I got a couple PMs saying that people didn't know that I updated yesterday, so please make sure you check out chapter 51 before reading this. Sorry for the confusion or whatever. With that being said, this chapter is a little bit **M **rated.

* * *

"What on EARTH were you thinking, Jo?! _WERE_ you thinking?!" Just as she starts hollering at me, she flicks on the harsh, bright light in my bedroom and I close my eyes so tight that my ears start to ache. _This must be what a vampire feels like. Really, the light does burn. _"Do you have ANY idea how negligent that makes ME look? To have somebody call me at TWO IN THE MORNING to come get you because you're throwing your brains up?!" _She can stop screaming at any time now. Stop screaming. _With my eyes still closed, I pull my quilt over my head to shield myself from the light and let out a soft, childlike moan. _I already don't feel good. This should be punishment enough. _"NO, you listen to me!" She grabs my quilt and pulls it off me.

"Oh my GOD, STOP SCREAMING!" I grab a pillow and put it over my head. "I can listen to you without you screaming at me…I swear." My head is pounding. I'm sore…on every part of my body. I feel like somebody ran me over with a pickup truck, and just left me on the side of the road. I'm being punished…just stop screaming. I pop one of my eyes open to look at her. Her arms are on her hips and her neck is sticking WAY out. "…God, I hate it when you do that…"

"Yeah? Well, I hate it when you make me get out of my bed at ungodly hours of the night to scrape your little behind up off the floor, but we all have to deal with things that piss us off!" She yanks the pillow off me too and I groan. "HOW DO YOU THINK I FEEL, JO? TO HAVE APRIL'S MOTHER CALL ME AND TELL ME THAT YOU TWO GOT INTO THE LIQUOR CABINET AND YOU'RE SO DRUNK THAT YOU CAN'T EVEN STAND UP?!"

"Okay…okay, please stop yelling." Two tears trickle out of my eyes and back to tickle my earlobes. This sleeping pill can kick in at any minute. "I'm never drinking again until I'm like….fifty. Please just leave me alone." I put my hands over my eyes and take a deep breath. "Just get out and stop yelling…" She sits down at the edge of my head and puts her hand on my leg. "I need you to stop touching me."

She completely ignores the "don't touch me" thing and continues screaming at me. "You're damn right you're not drinking until you're fifty! Because you're grounded until you're sixty!" I feel her untie my shoes and start taking them off, but I jut out my foot so she'll just stop. I ache so bad that I don't want to be touched. "You think this is cute?! You think getting SO DRUNK that you can't stand up is cute?!"

"Can we just talk about this in the morning? I don't feel good…"

"Of course you don't feel good! And you're not gonna feel good in the morning either, with a big ass hangover!" She throws my shoes into a corner of my room and unties the drawstrings on my pajama pants. "You can kiss your phone goodbye! Kiss your phone goodbye, kiss that car goodbye, kiss going anywhere on the weekends goodbye, kiss that boyfriend of yours goodbye, kiss it all goodbye! You go to school, you come home, you do your homework, you eat dinner, you go to BED! Do you hear me Josephine?!" I can't help but giggle at her. It's not funny…I know it's not. I know it's not funny. But I can't help but just giggle at the fact that I don't care. I don't need my phone, I don't need my car, I don't go anywhere on the weekends much anyway, Alex just broke up with me… if she's really trying to punish me, she's gonna have to try again. "DO. YOU. HEAR ME. JOSEPHINE?"

I stick one thumb up at her. "Loud and clear."

"…Try and sleep this off." She shakes her head at me, shuts off my light and shuts my door behind her. I don't feel good…at all. I'm so glad she left. I know that I have a lot of explaining to do tomorrow morning when I wake up and I'm sober and I have to face her, but I'll worry about that when the time comes. Right now, I just want to go to sleep.

I reluctantly lift my head up off my pillow and look around my pitch black bedroom for the little blue light that comes off my cable box. I just want to know what time it is. When my head literally starts spinning, I put it back down and just nix the whole time thing. I don't know who I was trying to kid. I'm drunk as hell right now and I swear I'm never drinking again. Me and April were never supposed to get like this, but Jackson and Alex came over, things got shitty and we cracked open another bottle…this time it was rum. Jackson and April didn't settle anything,… they're still broken up. And Alex? Well we all know what happened with me and him. So, drinking sounded like the perfect thing to mend both our heartaches.

Shamed as I am to say it, I don't know what happened next. I mean, I don't remember anything. I remember chugging the rum straight out the bottle and that's it. The next thing I remember is mom, showing up on April's doorstep to drag my ass home and now I'm here. Honestly, though? I think April's in more trouble than I am. Her mom was really pissed. I kind of wish that I could text her to see if she survived her parents' lecture and discipline, but A, I don't have my phone anymore, and B, she's just about as drunken as I am so I don't think I'd get a proper response.

I'm uncomfortable, by the way. My thick black, white and red plaid flannel pajama pants are really starting to make my legs sweat, and the pure cotton American Eagle hoodie I opted to wear tonight isn't helping my sweating issue. I didn't get a chance to change out of my day clothes at April's. The most I did was change out of my jeans. My hair is agitating me by sticking all over my face and the back of my neck, and my feet need to be free but they're in socks right now. Not to mention, I DON'T EVER sleep in bras. But my arms, legs and even my toes ache too bad for me to undress myself so I think I'm just gonna fall asleep as I am. I guess I am kind of grateful that mom took my shoes off.

The thing is though…. I don't even know why I drank like that. I mean, I know why I initially did it… but I don't know why I kept doing it. It did help at first…. Drinking, I mean. I did help. It made me stop crying for a little while. When Alex and Jackson left, I couldn't stop crying. I just lost the only other person in this world that I ever really wanted, you know? And that sucked…still currently sucking. The rum did help for a minute. I did stop crying and I did start cracking up laughing with April… but now, I'm still just really fucking sad over what happened with me and Alex.

Call me pathetic, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do now. I had him…and I got used to him. Now he's gone. He's REALLY gone, and I don't know who I am without him. I was really starting to like the person I was becoming with him. I was starting to see myself again… now I just don't know. I don't know who I am and I don't know who I'm even trying to be anymore. It's like… I need him. I need him, I had him and I lost him. That's always the case, though…isn't it? The old proverb…you don't know what you have until it's gone? Yeah.

I can't believe I begged him not to leave me. I begged him…like an idiot, I begged him. What's even scarier is the fact that I don't even care that I did it. I'd do it again. I didn't want him to leave me, you know? I held his hand and begged him not to…and he still did. I really messed up this time, didn't I? …Whatever. I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

I turn my aching head and feel my hair topple to cover my face. I close my eyes and breathe evenly…in and out. I'm going to sleep.

**x x x **

"….Jo? Jo…" _I swear, I just got rid of her. How many times do I have to tell her to leave me alone for the night? If she keeps trying to punish me, she should feel how I feel. I'm being punished…believe me. _"Are you sleeping?" _I'm trying to. And like it matters. You'd come in here if I was sleeping, you'd come in here if I wasn't. _I hear my door creak open and thump shut. "Jo, wake up." The mere empty spot next to my body on my bed creaks and sinks in. "Are you sleeping? J…wake up. You're not sleeping, are you?"

"…Like it fucking matters." I mumble and turn my head towards him. By now, I know that it's not mom, because she'd let me sleep. Shane? He doesn't give a damn. Plus, if it were mom, I wouldn't have cussed at her. I'm drunk, but I'm not that drunk. "How are you going to ask me if I'm sleep then wake me up anyway?" I look up at the ceiling and grit my teeth at how bad my head hurts.

"Sorry." He whispers back to me and pulls my covers back. "Move over." He pushes my almost lifeless body over to make room for himself. "Stop hogging the covers."

He's honestly the LAST person I want to see right now. He's the entire reason Alex broke up with me. "…I'm not even under the covers, you fucking…" I sigh. _It's not Shane's fault. It's yours, for not being able to convince Alex that you love him. It's not Shane's fault. _"What do you want, Shane?"

"Are you feeling okay, J?" I feel him pull the covers off and hear him stand up. "Why aren't you under the covers? What's the matter? You don't ever sleep like this…"

"…I'm drunk… and I don't feel good." I rub my eyes and find some strength within my body to sit up. "Again, what do you want? I'm trying to sleep this off so I don't wake up with a hangover."

"Oh yeah, I heard about you being drunk off your ass. Mom was pissed when she left to pick you up." All of a sudden, the little lamp in the corner of my room beside my TV flickers on. I squeeze one eye shut tight and purse my lips. _Ouch… light burns. _"Are you okay?"

"Do I look okay?"

"No…"

"Then don't ask stupid ass questions." I flop back down against my pillow and sigh. "Turn the light back off… lights don't help my headache."

"Right." He turns the lamp back off and sits back down on my bed. "Why were you and April drinking so much? You don't drink, Jo… do you?"

"Clearly." I mutter and put my pillow over my head again. "Me and April are both going through some shit, so we decided to drink… that's all."

"What shit are you going through? The verdict came out in your favor. I know I didn't come and all, but mom told me that it went well. She said that Jason's getting three years in jail, five years' probation, has to register as a sex offender and Paula lost her license to foster. That worked out in your favor. Or were you hoping for more than that?"

"You would know if you actually put forth the effort to come fucking support me."

"You sure have been throwing that F word around a lot…" I feel him touch my feet and pull my socks off. "What's with you?"

"Don't touch me, Shane. Seriously, don't touch me…" I kindly swat his hand away and pull my legs up so he'll leave them alone. I hear him whisper a soft, "sorry" and he lies next to me again. I'm not trying to be mean to him. It's not like I just don't want HIM to touch me. I don't want anyone to touch me right now…not even Alex. I'm too sore to be touched. Still and yet, Shane puts his finger on my temple and pulls my hair back so I'm not lying on it anymore. "Shane, I said don't touch me… Just get off me. I'm in so much pain right now, I don't need you to touch me. I need you to shut up and stop touching me. Everything hurts right now. Even my hair hurts."

"I was only trying to help. I thought you might feel better if you were comfortable, crucify me for trying to help." He immediately ceases all contact with me. "I forgot…that seems to be the theme these days. Yell at Shane for any reason possible, ignore him and treat him like junk. Sorry…I really forgot."

"How many times do I have to apologize? Just let me know."

"…You haven't apologized to me though, J. You haven't apologized for treating me the way you've been treating me lately… you only apologized for… you know… my feelings. You never apologized for being a straight up bitch to me lately."

"Oh…" I put my tongue in my cheek. "Well, I'm sorry. But… you haven't been treating me very nicely lately either. You didn't even come to my hearing… you knew how big that was for me and you didn't even come…"

"I didn't think you'd want me there."

"Why wouldn't I?" I turn my head and look at him…or whatever of him I can make out through the complete, total darkness. "Shaney, you're my best friend. Why wouldn't I want you there? I love you and I still need you. I know… I know things between us have been real messed up lately, but you're still my best friend in the entire world. I still trust you with my life. Of course I wanted you there…"

"I just thought that you didn't really want anything to do with me. I mean… you said yourself that you didn't really know how to split up your time with Alex and your time with me, so I just thought that I was doing you a favor by not coming. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. And if I knew that you wanted me there, I definitely would've came… I just don't want to mess things up with you and Alex. I know how important he is to you."

"…I don't think you'll have to worry about that. I did a pretty good job of messing that up myself."

"What do you mean?"

"He broke up with me tonight." I purse my lips together again and feel some tears coming on. I blink once and they spill over and stream down my cheeks, but I wipe them away quickly. "So yeah… I messed that one up for myself. That wasn't you."

"…Why? Why'd he do that?" I'm sure that Shane can't see my face because of how dark it is in my room, but somehow, he just knows… and he reaches over and wipes my tears with his own hands. "I thought… but I thought… why'd he do that?" His tone makes him sound a little…angry?

"Don't worry about it, Shane." I sniff and move his hands away from my face so it doesn't seem like I'm too heartbroken. Truth is, I'm crushed. I'm so devastated that I lost him that I don't even know what I'm going to do without him… but I don't want Shane to know that. "He just said that he thinks I need time to figure out what I want. And… I don't know… I guess he's right." For the record, I don't think Alex is right. I know perfectly well what I want. I know that I want ALEX. But again, I don't want to let Shane know that. "Because I'm killing myself trying to make sure you're happy and he's happy too. It's tough work choosing between someone your heart loves and someone your mind is telling you to love."

"What do you mean?" I can tell by the calm, serene nature of his voice that he's just listening to me…and that's what I love about Shane. He's listening before he passes judgment. He gets up off my bed again and goes over to what I think is my dresser, by the sounds of my perfume bottles clanking together. "I'm not getting what he meant by you figuring out what you want. It seemed pretty concrete to me, and I was just speculating." Suddenly, something soft hits my body. Clothes? Yeah, clothes. He got me pajamas…real pajamas. "You don't mind if I sleep in here, do you?"

"No, I don't care." Slowly, I lift my aching body up and take off my hoodie. I think I'm starting to sober up a little. "But… I think he just means that I'm confused and I'm really not. My heart and my mind have been having this battle for a couple weeks now and I seem pretty good with letting my heart win. I don't know why now's such a big difference." Only because I know he can't see me through the darkness, I take my bra off too and pop the t-shirt he got for me over my head.

"Well what's the damn difference, then? What's your heart telling you and what's your mind telling you?"

"My heart's telling me that Alex is it for me. My heart's telling me that I love him and I genuinely believe that I do." I toss my pajama pants on the floor and put on the pair of shorts he got for me. "But then there's my mind and my mind is telling me that I'm being a bitch for completely blowing you off. It's just two different kinds of love and my mind is telling me to mush it all together when my heart doesn't want me to." I pull my covers back and get underneath of them.

"So it's like a… friendly love and a boyfriend love and your mind is telling you to love… us both like the boyfriend love but your heart doesn't want to? Makes sense." He gets under my covers right along with me. "Don't worry about me though, Jo. I'm starting to get the hang of this…"

"Hang of what?"

"This whole… putting my feelings for you aside. I'm not really feeling you anymore as much as I was. Maybe I'm finally growing out of it."

"Maybe. But that doesn't help the fact that I lost my boyfriend because he thought I was in love with you."

"Are you? In love with me?"

"No." I shake my head. "I have love for you, because you're my best friend. But I'm not in love with you. And I can't force something to be there that isn't there." I shrug my shoulders. "Oh, and I have something to tell you…" I'm debating on waiting to tell him at this point, though. I don't know if I should wait until tomorrow to tell him or if I should just go ahead and tell him right now while it's on my mind. If I tell him right now, I honest to God, probably won't remember telling him this. I am starting to sober up, but I'm still incredibly drunk. I can tell that I'm still drunk. I can tell that I am. But if I don't tell him now, I'll forget. Whatever… at least I'll tell him.

"What do you have to tell me?"

"I lied. And I've been lying to you." I think April told me to tell him this. She said that it might make our friendship stronger if I stop lying to him, so here I am…coming clean. I don't think I would have the balls to admit this to him if I were completely sober, to be honest. "I do remember…. And I lie when I tell you that I don't. I lie. I'm a liar." A giggle slips out of my mouth. It's not funny…

"Remember what, Jo?" He pulls covers over me some more. "You're so drunk right now…"

"Everything." I know it's not funny, but it's easier if I laugh and I feel like I can't help but laugh, so I laugh. "Like… when I told you that I don't remember making out with you…and all that other stuff. I do remember. Perfectly." I squeeze my lips together and laugh. "I had to wear turtlenecks for a week when you gave me those hickeys… I remember that."

"…I know you do." He shrugs his shoulders. "I always knew. …When you lie? You look at my chin. You don't look me in my eye. I always knew. I guess I just figured you wish you could forget." He turns his back to me. "We should go to sleep…"

"No, not yet…" I turn to face him. "Shane. It's not that I want to forget… I just don't like talking about it. But I do remember… so you're not crazy." I lie my head down on my pillow. "…Will you hold me? Just until I fall asleep."

"No." He sighs hard. "Last time I did that, you acted like you didn't remember asking me that. This time, you probably REALLY won't remember and I don't want to get bitched at in the morning. So no."

"Shane, it's okay. I'll remember asking you. I'm not that drunk anymore."

"It's not a good idea, Jo…." I feel him reach up and grab a pillow. "I don't want you to get mad at me and I honestly don't know if I'm going to be able to control myself if I hold you and I know that you're single. So no… I'm not holding you." He puts the pillow between us. "Night, J."

"It's fine. I'll tell you if you go too far." I tap him on his shoulder. "I won't be able to sleep if you don't…and you know I won't. Just hold me. It doesn't even have to be around my waist. It can be around my arms or whatever. Just until I fall asleep and then you can let me go."

I hear him heave a hard sigh and feel him move the pillow between us. "I should really get you to put these things in writing. I don't know why I don't learn." He scoots over towards the middle of my bed and I scoot over towards him too. He puts his arms loosely around my waist and I close my eyes. His hands are resting on my upper thighs and his head is laying on my hair as we're sharing the same pillow. "Your hair smells good."

"Thanks." I put my covers overtop my arms and keep my eyes closed. I do kind of wish it were Alex holding me. If it were Alex, I'd be able to lie on his chest and he'd be able to hold me so tight that I can't move. Crap, I'm crying again. I find myself sniveling. I just wish I still had him in my life, you know? "…Shane?" He doesn't answer me. He just knows immediately what I want, and he does it. He pulls me just a little tighter. "Thanks…" I mumble and clear my throat so I can say something else. "It's okay if… you enjoy this." I bring one of my hands up and wipe my face free of tears. "I'm… I'm…." It hurts to even say it. "I am single…you know?"

"You don't want me to enjoy this, J…" He mutters, talking into the lengths of my hair.

"I said you can, I don't care anymore…whatever." I shrug. At least I can make someone happy out of this, right?

"Trust me… you don't want me to enjoy this."

"I SAID YOU COULD!" I raise my voice at him. I'm just not completely into him telling me what I want and what I don't want. I won't let him go too far. And it's unfair of me to tease him by asking him to hold me so he might as well enjoy it a little bit. This is me… giving my 50 to a relationship. Shane's holding me liked I asked him to, and that's his 50. If I let him get a little bit of enjoyment out of it, that's my 50. I'm giving 50, not 20. "You trust me… I won't let you do anything serious. You should at least be able to enjoy this…"

"I'm already enjoying it." He tightens his grip around my waist a little bit more and pulls me closer to his body. "There."

"Mmmkay." I close my eyes again and try to fall asleep for the second time tonight. His hands are still on my upper thighs, but his fingers are just underneath my shirt. Just so he knows that I'm still okay with this, I take one of my hands and run my fingers along his arm. I'll keep doing this until I fall asleep, just to make sure he knows that I'm okay with it. I'll stop him if he does something that I don't like...for as long as I stay awake.

His fingers brush across the rim of my shorts and further up my shirt, onto my stomach. I stiffen my hand up and push his hand down further so he knows to get out of my shirt. That's not okay. "Are you sleep?" He whispers. I shake my head. "…You don't know how long I've wanted you to be okay with this…" I smile, but not because I'm happy or anything. I'm just glad that he's happy. …I guess if he touches my stomach, it's not that bad. I loosen my hand up and push his up underneath my shirt just a little bit more so his thumb is touching my belly ring. There. That's okay.

Maybe Shane's not so bad for me. Maybe he's okay. He treats me nicely and he's not mean to me. He's a nice guy. But… But…. I don't know. I just don't know. I'm so mixed up. And I'm still not right and I know that if I do this, his sober mind will eat this up and my drunk mind will just be like… oh well. I don't know. I sigh and turn my head just a little bit. I kiss the corner of his mouth. Not his lips, just the corner. No tongue or anything, just lips. Not wet, just dry lips. And he reacts well to that, actually. The only thing he does is start moving his fingers and start caressing my stomach. _You're single…there's nothing wrong with just trying it. Just try it. If you don't like it, there's no gun to your head saying to keep going. Just try… _I lick my dry lips and close my eyes tight. I take my hand away from his hand and bring it up to his jawline. I hold his face still and give him one soft kiss. Still no tongue, but with wet lips this time. I prop myself up on my elbow so I'm more comfortable and keep my lips to his lips for a couple more seconds. He doesn't try to stick his tongue in my mouth and I don't try to stick mine in his. It's just a kiss. Lip to lip…kiss.

His hands stray away from my stomach, to the back of my shirt and to my lower back. His hands tighten their grip around my hips and pull me towards him. My eyes snap open and I pull away from him just a little. Woah…woah. "…Sorry." He apologizes and loosens the grasp on my hips. "I didn't mean to… you're just… I just…"

"It's okay." I whisper back to him and put my lips back against his for another kiss. Out of instinct, my lips just fall open a little and he jumps at that. His smooth, baby-soft lips glide against mine, forcing mine apart enough for him to really kiss me. Our tongues are swirling together and his hands are back to what they were doing on my back, but as long as he doesn't go further than that…he's okay. He's a freakishly good kisser, by the way. He's not too rough, but he lets me know that he's the one in control. And when we pull away for air, he catches my bottom lip between his lips and sucks on it, which…wow. Wow. Wow. One of his hands tangles itself in my hair and he keeps kissing me all hard and passionate and I, unconsciously, moan into his mouth. That little moan just opened up so many doors for him, it seems. He pulls his mouth away from mine and within the same second, his lips make their way to my neck, below my ear and right on the spot that gets me ready. My breathing hitches and my chest hiccups a little. "Shane…Shane…" I whisper, pushing his face away.

"Sorry…" Once again, he apologizes. "I said I can't control myself…" I shake my head and go ahead and let him go back to kissing my neck. His hands grip my waist again and with just a little bit of force, he puts me on my back. He's on top of me, between my legs but it's not to that extent yet. He's just kissing me on my neck and rubbing my hips. His fingers are struggling to find the edge of my shirt. He moves away from my neck for a second to look below my neck. His fingers find the edge and start pulling my shirt all the way up to the point where my boobs are almost hanging out. "I just really need this…" He hungrily buries his face back in my neck and his fingers fumble with the waistband of my shorts next. He desperately pulls my shorts like he really, really wants them off.

"Wait, no… stop that." I move his hands away from me. "Nothing below the waist…okay?" He mumbles an "uh huh" and gives me a kiss on my lips one last time and starts kissing down my body. One kiss on my collarbone, another on my upper stomach, another on my side, another on my lower stomach, one on my side. "I said nothing below the…" He's kissing my lower stomach so aggressively that I just have to let a soft little moan interrupt me. My legs innocuously bend at the knees and I throw my head back. I think he thinks that means go ahead, but it doesn't. He locks his arms around my legs and kisses all along my inner thighs, around the cloth of my shorts. This is fine. He's okay with that. He pulls me further down by my legs and actually kisses me, through my shorts. What part of nothing below the waist doesn't he understand? "I said…" _Ohh my god… _I bring my hand up and cover my face with it as a low, melodious moan escapes my lips again. He's basically eating me out, through my shorts. But I told him nothing below my waist. The free hand that I'm not using to cover my face makes its way down to his head. I gotta stop him now. I'd love for this to continue, but… I can't do this anymore. "Sh…IT." I started to say his name to stop him but it ended up coming out as a swear word, because his tongue is poking the most sensitive part of me. "…Stop… stop, Shane… stop." My eyes flutter shut, but I make them open back up. "Stooooopp…"

He kisses the outside of me, through my shorts and all the way back up to my neck. I swallow a moan that was on its way out of my mouth and take a breather. "…We should go to bed." I whisper to him. "Let's go to bed…okay?"

"…Yeah." He sighs. He doesn't sound disappointed, but I can tell that he wanted to keep going. I would've liked to keep going too, but I honestly don't think I would like myself very much if I did that to Shane. It would've been just sex to me and it obviously means something to him. I wouldn't like myself much if I did that to him. I turn my back towards him so I can go to sleep. I'm not mad at myself for what I did. I'm single and I didn't cheat on anybody just now. I just… I don't know. I'm glad I didn't go all the way with him, because that would've made me hate myself. I can tell that I'm starting to fall asleep, because like always, I'm starting to think all deep and stuff. I'm just so glad that I stopped it. "Hey, Jo…"

"Hmm?"

"…Thanks, I guess." _What's he thanking me for? _"For letting that go." _Oh. _"I know that probably sucked for you… but it was great for me. Even if it wasn't really anything." _It didn't suck for me. It really didn't suck. I wanted to do it too. But I really would've hated myself if we actually did it. You would've been all in love with it and it would've just been for the pleasure for me. I don't want to do that to you. _"You're kind of amazing. And I know you probably won't remember any of this in the morning, but just in case you do…I wanted you to know that I think you're amazing." _Oh my gosh. _"It's amazing how… how you're perfect with everything without evening trying. How everything you do is basically… magical. Your lips are soft, you know. Your lips are soft, your hair smells good, your skin is soft and smooth, you… you moan so pretty. You're flawless. And I find you amazing…"

_Well… one can only hope that I won't remember this when I wake up. And one can only hope that he can't tell that the whole time… _

_I kinda wished he was Alex._


	53. Making It

**A/N: **Alright, I'm getting tired of putting Author's Notes at the beginning of every chapter, to be honest But this one is much needed. Before reading this chapter, I suggest going back and reading chapter 52 REALLY FREAKING CAREFULLY for one TINY little detail that you ALL missed. With that being said, COULD YOU BE A LITTLE BIT NICER TO ME, PLEASE? lol. I'm sorry for chapter 52, but it will make sense in about ten minutes when you're done reading this chapter. It wouldn't make sense if I didn't make Jo's recovery a little more complicated than her, going to see a freaking therapist and BOOM all fixed. Like I said, I LIVE for making my stories really realistic so it feels like you could jump right into Jo's shoes if you needed to. So if you decided to stop reading after chapter 52, I'm sorry for that. Really, I am. But quite frankly, it does kind of hurt my feelings when you guys don't give me time to clear things up. It was really important for me to get this update up tonight, because I didn't want to leave you with a sour taste in your mouths for long.

With all that being said, Enjoy the update.

* * *

"Jojo…. Hello…Joooo…." Tiny little fingers pull my eyelid down and I wrinkle my eyebrows. _What in the world? _"Do you think she's dead? Maybe she's dead." _I'm not dead…but I feel like I should be. _The same tiny fingers pull my eyelid downwards again and this time I open up my eyes. As soon as I open my eyes, a bright light nearly blinds me. "She's not dead!" Another pair of small hands grab my ponytail and pull it to lift my head up off the pillow, like my head's a piñata and they're stringing me up by my hair. "Mornin', Jojo…"

I rub my eyes and hold my head up on my own, without their help. "Hey guys…" I look at my cable box to see what time it is. It's half past noon. I slept that long? I turn my head to glance over at my phone, but I forget that my hair is currently being manhandled and that hurts. "Ow…ow…. Mattie, let my hair go." I use my hand to gently pry his fingers off me. I reach over to grab my phone, but my hand falls flat. _Where's my phone? _Oh. I forgot. And to make sure I remember, my head starts pulsating. "Did…" Ooh…it kind of hurts to talk a little bit. "Did mom send you guys in to wake me up?"

"Yep." Nicky climbs up on my bed and collapses down on my pillow beside me. "Her said… her said…" He begins to stutter, so he takes a break from talking before he tries again. "Her said we can't come back without you…. so get up! Uppy, uppy!" He pulls my covers off me. "Get… up!"

"I'm up, I'm up." I reluctantly sit up and put my tired feet down on the rug beside my bed. _My eyes hurt. They usually only hurt like this after I cry… I don't know. _But I know exactly why she sent Nick and Matt in to wake me up. She sent them to get me because she knows that I can't ignore them. I'm mighty good at ignoring wake up calls from Shane and I'm even better at ignoring wake up calls from her, herself. But it's nearly impossible to ignore wake up calls from Nick and Matt. Literally, impossible. They bite my toes, pull my hair, slap me with pillows, tug on my face and poke me in the most awkward ways possible until I wake up. It never fails. As soon as I get up, they scurry on out of my room like two little field mice. "…Ouuuuch." I mumble to myself when I stand up for the first time. My body feels like it should be nothing but gelatin and bruises. I feel horrible.

I walk over to my dresser to grab a pair of socks to put on. As I step over a pair of flannel pajama pants and a thick hoodie that are lying in the middle of my floor, I vaguely remember last night. Shane helped me get comfortable last night. I make a mental note to thank him for that later. Once I grab a pair of socks from my drawer, I look at myself in the mirror. My ponytail is straight back and resting in the middle of my back. It's like I just freshly put it in or something. I see harsh, purple bruises on my arms and on my wrists. Like somebody was restraining me last night. _Did you do something? Who did you get into a fight with last night? _Out of instinct, I lift up the bottom of my t-shirt. There are bruises all over my stomach. "What the fuck?" I silently mouth to myself.

"Josephine." I put my shirt down and jump as soon as my name is called and look over at the door. It's mom…and she doesn't look happy. "I want you downstairs in five minutes." I nod my head, because I can't exactly form a sentence with the shit still scared out of me. I hope she didn't see me checking out my bruises… "Five minutes, Jo. On the double." She turns around and leaves me alone. She's clearly not my biggest fan at the moment.

I'm not entirely sure what happened last night… but I do know that I'm in a shitload of trouble. For one, I'm hungover. And that could only mean that I wasn't smart enough to keep the fact that I was drunk a secret. I vaguely remember coming home last night and being yelled at, but nothing more than that. I remember Shane coming in my room and helping me get comfortable in my bed. I remember asking him to hold me. I remember…other things. I don't have a defense mechanism at the moment. I think the only thing I can do is cry. I yank my hair out of my raggedy ponytail and softly pad my way out the door, down the hallway, down the stairs and to the kitchen.

I can tell that mom must've cooked breakfast this morning. Not because I smell it, not because I'm so hungry that I smelled it all the way upstairs. But because I hear what sounds like "Vienna" by Billy Joel playing on the radio in the kitchen, and she always has music playing when she cooks. Shane's sitting at the kitchen table with his face buried in a newspaper and a fork in his hand. I'm not sure where the two tiny terrors went. Mom's scraping scrambled eggs on a plate and humming along to the song. I quietly pull a chair out at the table and sit down without a word. I just fixate my eyes on a series of four bandages plastered on Shane's arm. I wonder where he got that. I didn't notice that last night.

"How do you feel this morning, Jo?" Mom's tone suggests that she has a rehearsed answer for what I'm going to say in her mind. I can't tell if her question was seriously rhetorical or not, so I just opt not to answer. She walks over to where I'm sitting and puts a plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes in front of me. "You CAN hear me, can't you?" I just look down at the plate and remain quiet. It's taking everything in me not to cry right now. "Little girl." Her tone grows firm and she stands right next to me so I can't ignore her. "I said how are you feeling this morning, Josephine?" I just clear my throat and shrug my shoulders. "Do you have a headache?" I nod. "Do you feel like you need to throw up?" I shrug again. "Eat something. And then me and you need to talk." I pick up a fork and stab my eggs with it. I'm not very hungry all of a sudden, but I stick a few eggs in my mouth anyway. "I'll be right back, I have to take this phone call." Mom busily picks up the house phone and dashes out the back door, onto the back porch.

I just keep my eyes down on my plate, mindlessly chewing a mouthful of food that's well ready for me to swallow it. I don't know what to say. I definitely feel like I should say something, but I'm not sure what I should say. Should I just tell him that I'm sorry for anything that went on last night? Should I tell him that I'm sorry for letting it happen? Should I let him know how deeply I regret it? Should I just tell him that… I wasn't feeling it? Should I be honest with him and tell him that while he enjoyed what happened, I didn't? And even though he enjoyed it, it didn't do anything but completely seal the deal for me? The deal that I have none, and probably won't ever have any romantic feelings for him? I just don't know what to say…

"…Are you okay?" He breaks the silence, which makes me let out a breath that I didn't know I was holding in. I don't even know if he should be the one asking me if I'm okay. I should be asking him. I'm the bitch here. I'm the stupid one. I'm the one that started everything. I can't even explain how guilty I feel right now. I'm confused, because I know that I'm single. I do remember being broken up with last night. I don't remember how exactly Alex went about breaking up with me, but I know that he did it. And I feel guilty for doing stuff with Shane last night. He gave me a hickey on my neck, and I let him. I haven't actually seen it, but I know when I have one. It's just like… he was kissing me so much that it'd be hard for him to have NOT given me one. I probably have one on my stomach, too. He was just kissing me everywhere. I feel so lousy. Like a piece of shit human being.

"Um…" I clear my throat again. "Yeah? I'm okay…" I spear more eggs with my fork. "Why wouldn't I be?" I think that statement clarifies a lot. I should be okay. He should be the broken one. I'm the one that did it. It was all me.

"…Because you…" He puts the newspaper he was looking at down and just stares at me. "Do you seriously not remember last night?"

"…No, I do." I put my fork down and look at him. I'm about to give him the biggest, most sincere, heart-felt apology I can offer. "I'm so sorry for what I did last night, Shane. I'm so sorry. You were… you were just being nice to me. And I took full advantage of that. I know… I know what that means to you. And I know that I shouldn't have even done that. And I know that I should've just left you alone. I should've just accepted the fact that you… didn't want to. You told me you didn't want to and I kinda… I made you. It's not your fault. But…" I look up at the ceiling then back at him. "I hated it. I really hated it. And it's not because of you. You're GREAT, so please don't think… you know. It was all my fault and you shouldn't even… you shouldn't blame yourself for any of that. I knew what I was doing…kinda. And I just… I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing anymore… and I'm sorry that my confusion had to be at the expense of you. But that shouldn't have happened last night…at all. It shouldn't have happened."

"…What the hell are you talking about, Jo?" He's literally looking at me like I'm crazy. "…What do you remember from last night?"

I look at him back, just like he's crazy and I'm not. "…Me and you. I… I made you hold me. And then… and then I kissed you. And it went too far…" It's not until I feel a tear hit my arm that I notice that I'm crying. "It went way too far… don't be mad at me, okay? Please don't be mad. I'm sorry… you just have to understand that I'm sorry… don't be mad at me… I don't know if I can handle somebody else being mad at me…"

"Why would I be mad at you?" He holds his arm out to me and starts peeling off the bandages on it. "For this? It doesn't even hurt. Why would I be mad at you?"

"….For making out with you… and letting you give me hickeys…" I reach up and wipe my tears. "When I didn't like it…"

"Okay seriously… WHAT are you talking about?" He stands up, reaches over and grabs the tiny mirror magnet that's hanging on the refrigerator. "Jo, you don't have hickeys… and I didn't kiss you last night. Wha… are… are you okay?"

"Shane, yes you did." I grab the mirror off him and look at my neck. It's clean…completely clean. I'm so… "But I… I felt it… I felt you. You were… you were holding me. You were on top of me and you were…. You were kissing me…all over the place."

"…No. No, I didn't." He pulls my plate away from me so my tears don't soil my food. "Trust me, I would know if I was kissing you. I wouldn't forget it." He hands me a paper towel to wipe my face. "I did come in and sleep with you. I slept with you last night because you were really messed up. I wanted to make sure you were okay. And yeah… you did ask me to hold you. And I did hold you. And you rubbed my arm while I held you…and you fell asleep. And I fell asleep too." I wrinkle my eyebrows and look down at the floor. _I'm so confused. No… I didn't fall asleep. I remember… I remember it. It did seem a little weird, but I know it happened. It happened…didn't it? _"I thought you were having a nightmare… because you were squirming and it sounded like you were crying in your sleep…so I held you more to calm you down but you started screaming…and you scratched me and stuff."

"…But…" I shake my head. "No. That's not what happened. I distinctly remember telling you to get off me. I remember telling you to stop touching me and I remember asking you not to touch me below my waist… and you…you didn't listen. I remember that."

"Jo… no. That's not what happened." He just looks at me. "…I was the sober one. I think I'd know if I kissed you and touched you. I would know that. You were so messed up last night. You did… you DID tell me to get off you, but only when I was holding you. And you did tell me to stop touching you below your waist, but you were literally SOBBING when you told me that…so I thought you were having a nightmare. Or a flashback…" He scoots next to me. "…And you told me that you just wanted to go to bed. So I let you go…and you went back to sleep. And that was it. Nothing happened last night…between us. I don't know…what's wrong with you. But I know for a FACT that I never kissed you. I might have wanted to… but I didn't."

"But we talked." I scratch my head out of sincere confusion. "And I told you about my heart and my mind and I told you that Alex broke up with me and then I told you that I do remember the things I say I don't… and we talked. And you helped me get dressed… didn't you?"

"Yeah. You got that part right." He touches a strand of my hair. "You did tell me about you and Alex, you did give me a speech about your heart and your mind and I did help you get dressed. And then we laid down and talked for a little bit more. You asked me to hold you…and you were out like a light until you had your screaming nightmare fit. Even my mom came in after you were sleeping again and asked me if you were alright. That's when she fixed my arms up. You have really long nails, you know…"

"…Was I really… " _It makes sense that you don't have any hickeys on your body. You don't have hickeys, lip marks… your hair was still perfectly intact when you woke up. Maybe… maybe you really didn't do anything. But… I could've swore… I swear. I remember holding his hand while he held me….and I remember rubbing his hand to let him know that it was okay. And I remember thinking to myself that I was going to rub his hands until I fell asleep… _"Did I really dream all of that?"

"More like nightmared all of it." He picks up an apple from the fruit basket in the middle of the table and sighs. "…Honesty hour?" He asks. Honesty hour is just something we used to say to each other when we had something to say that we weren't sure the other would like to hear. It's kind of like our version of "no offense." I nod my head to let him know that I'll honor his "honesty hour" thing. He tosses the apple up and down and follows it with his eyes. "…I'm kinda worried about you, J. I don't think you're okay anymore."

"Why?"

"You still have nightmares about it. And you… you said something to me last night while you were crying when you woke up…"

"What'd I say?"

"You told me you wished I was Alex."

"I did?"

"Yeah… but…" He puts the apple back. "You were probably just still sad about the breakup or something. I didn't take it personal." He puts his elbows on the table and looks at me again. "…I dunno… I thought I knew what you were dreaming about when you were crying… but I don't really think I had any idea."

"Yeah…. me either." I stand up from the table. _I need to go lie down for a little while longer. I'm really… really not feeling right. I feel…weird. Really weird. And honestly? I'm scared. _"Tell mom I don't feel good… so I'm going back to lie down." I purse my lips together and leave out of the kitchen. I'm so scared right now. I don't feel like I know what's going on. I don't feel like I'm in control…and I don't like this. I don't like this right now.

* * *

"I really just don't even know right now. I swear to god that happened and then he's all… 'No, Jo. It never happened.' What is that?! Because I swear it did! It was so damn realistic! I remember everything! It was like… one minute, I was kissing him and then the next minute I was asking him to stop giving me freaking oral! But then it never happened?! WHAT EVEN IS THAT?! Somebody has to give me an answer here! I'm just…. I don't… UGH! HELP?!" I haven't sat down since I got here. I can't sit down while I'm ranting. I can't. "I spent the better half of my morning scared to death! And if it wasn't real, why do I remember details?! I'm drunk, I'm hungover… WHY DO I REMEMBER THAT?! What the… fuck?! I don't get it! And you're just sitting there with your pen… HELP ME! I'm freaking out here!"

"I can see that you're freaking out. Freaking out is good." She puts her pen down and crosses her hands. "I haven't really seen this before, but I've seen things where—"

"LIKE WAS I REALLY THAT DRUNK? DID I DRINK TOO MUCH? What kind of…" I put my hand to my head. "THIS IS CRAZY, RIGHT? I'M CRAZY, AREN'T I? Alex was so right… I'm so nuts. I'm crazy… I'm going crazy. I'm going crazy…"

"Jo…"

"I just… I totally am nuts. Because I swear that happened and he said it didn't?! I'm so… freaking… How do I remember shit that DID happen, but make up shit that DIDN'T? Does this even make sense? HELP ME!"

"I can't help you if you don't let me tal—"

"You can't help me. You can't help me…" I pace back and forth. "They should've totally committed me to psych when they could. I need to be put in a strait-jacket or something. I know Dr. Robbins said she didn't want that for me, but at this point, I'm totally convinced that I need to be strapped down to a bed and given a shot of Thiazine in my ASS!"

"JO, SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!" She stands up out of her chair and leans across the table. "If you want me to help you, you have GOT to let me talk, baby!" For the first time since I been here, I actually shut up. "Now sit down… and let me talk." I sit down in the chair I usually sit in and she sits back down across from me. "This is exactly the reason I don't usually come in on Sundays. Don't make me regret giving you special treatment." I shut my mouth and just stare at her. She seriously just shut me up. "Now. You're NOT going crazy. You're not crazy or psycho and you're not losing your mind. This is normal. I was really expecting this to happen. Especially when your mom told me that you were out drinking last night."

"….But I am going crazy. I just—"

"It's my turn to talk!" I shut up again. "When you got home last night… did you take your sleeping pill? Your Trazadone? Did you take it?"

"…Yeah, but I don't even… it didn't even work, because mom kept me awake for a little while with her yelling… so I don't even—"

"I didn't ask you for all of that." She snaps at me. I shut up once again. "You were intoxicated last night… and you took a SLEEPING pill on top of that alcohol. You ought to be glad you didn't die, for one." I squint my eyes at her. _Oh damn… I never thought about that. I really didn't think about that. _"Second of all… that was a pretty vivid dream you had last night, eh?" I nod my head, for the sake of her not telling me to shut up. "What happened in your dream? Like… exactly?" I just look at her. "…You can talk now, Goof Troop."

"I already told you! It was crazy! I kissed Shane… and I LOVED Shane… and I kept letting him kiss me… and he started to give me oral, but it wasn't the real thing because my pants were on and stuff…"

She just smiles at me…and I don't know what's worth smiling for. "I figured it all out… why can't you?" Again, I squint my eyes. Why won't she freaking HELP me? "The only thing I'm going to let you in on, is the fact that taking sleeping pills and alcohol together can really mess your system up. And that's all I'm going to say about it. Now you sit there… and you think about everything you just said to me. About Alex breaking up with you last night… about how in your dream, you were kissing Shane, about how in your dream, you told Shane not to do something and he did it anyway… just think about it."

"…This isn't fair. I'm just a kid. You're a DOCTOR. You're actually trained to put the pieces together. You do this for a living…"

"It's not that hard though, Jo. You're a smart girl and it's not that hard. Now, if I'm telling you that alcohol and your sleeping pill can mess up your sleeping pattern and give you pretty lucid dreams… what else can you conclude from that?"

"That I'm fucking crazy…. And awfully lucky that I didn't die."

"I'm not giving you the answer to this. Because by now, you know that it's my own personal goal to achieve something with you every time you visit me. If I tell you the answer to this, we wouldn't have achieved anything and your recovery is set back just a little. So I'm not telling you the answer to this. I want you to examine yourself. Because in a little while, when you turn eighteen and you can't come see me anymore, you're going to have to do this. So you better learn how."

"Wait…" I hold my hand up. "I can't come see you when I turn eighteen?"

"No, you can't. I'm a pediatric psychiatrist. I don't work with adults. I can't treat you when you get older. So you better learn how to examine yourself, tell yourself when to calm the heck down and move on with your life."

"…But what if I want to keep seeing you? Can't we… can't we just… be friends or something? I mean… I know they tell me not to overstep my boundaries. I know you're just a doctor and I'm just a patient of yours but… I mean… you're kind of my best friend. You're the only person that listens to me and never really bitches at me for being a bitch…"

"Don't worry yourself about it right now. Right now, I want you to tell me what you think happened last night. And I want you to tell me what you think it means. And I want you to tell me what you should do about it. Diagnose yourself… tell ME what your problem is."

"…I don't know." I shrug. "I mean… I guess I just had a bad dream. It was just a nightmare about the whole Jason thing. But it was vivid and it seemed real. But it wasn't Jason… it was Shane… I guess." I sigh. "I don't really know."

"You know. I know you know." She crosses her hands again. "…What made this dream so different from the other ones you've had about Jason in the past? Aside from the fact that it was so vivid."

"…That it was Shane." I look her in her eyes. "…Are you trying to say that Shane raped me? Because I… I know I was drunk but… I think I would've…"

"No, Jo. No." She sighs. "I can tell this is going to be a little more difficult." She picks up her pen and scribbles something down in her notebook. "Okay… first thing that comes to your mind when you think 'Shane.' Go."

"Friendly."

"First word when you think 'Alex.'"

"…Love. Sadness…"

"And 'Jason'?"

"….Hatred."

"…Ringing any bells?"

"No, not really." I shake my head.

"….So tell me again the different stages of your dream…"

"How many times do I have to say it? I kissed Shane… I felt like… like I might've actually wanted to be with him for a minute. But then… I wanted him to stop. Because I didn't like it anymore. It was just… weird." She raises her eyebrows, like I just said something crucial. I just shrug my shoulders at her.

"…It seems to me that you have three very important men in your life. And those three men are very different. So what you said to me earlier…about your heart and your mind wanting to squish all your emotions together? What if your body tried to do the same thing last night?"

"…I don't know."

"Mixed with a sleeping pill? Giving you very vivid dreams?"

"….So you think…" I clear my throat. "You think that the dream was so real because of the sleeping pill and the alcohol. And you think… you think that the whole dream was a… big mash up of everything? You think the fact that it was Shane that was kissing me was the friendly part… the fact that I liked it was the Alex part…and the part where I wanted him to stop was because of the Jason thing?"

"Ahh… see, you're getting it." She nods her head. "Didn't you tell me a couple weeks ago that you've made out with Shane before?" I nod. "And you told me that the first time you were physically intimate with Alex, it started with him going down on you, yes?" I nod again. "And when you told the man in your dream not to do something, but he did it anyway? Ringing any Jason bells?"

"….Oh my god."

"See? I told you that there was a reason, didn't I? Everything you think of? There's a reason. There's a reason behind every action… And if I can get you to start thinking about the reasons behind your actions, the way you just did for me? You'll be better in no time. You're still making progress, Jo… you really are."

"…But I just don't feel like I am sometimes."

"That's the thing about progress. You don't always see it when you're making it."


	54. Green Eyed Monster

"Up town, another endless night hearts break in early morning light. Yeah, I take my time." I tap my eraser against my notebook in a thinking gesture and erase an O that I made. I really out to start paying attention in chemistry. I haven't properly caught up from the little bit behind I got when I went to Franklin for a little while, and I'm just a tiny bit lost. I swipe my index finger across the white part of my iPod to turn my music up to a deafening volume and continue to sing. "Downtown, a lonesome boy at home don't know what's really going on. Yeah, I take my time." _So if Carbon formed a hybrid chain with Hydrogen… wouldn't it… Yeah. _In light of my new discovery, I jot down part one of my answer. I really ought to stop waiting until Sunday nights to do my homework. "But underneath it all I know it feels so right. I feel I'm going crazy, but I won't cry tonight." Oddly enough, I'm… okay. I think I'm okay, because for the most part, I feel normal. I'm lying on my bed on a school night, listening to music and doing homework. This is something I would've been doing two months ago.

Crazy, isn't it? How you take for granted what "normalcy" actually is for you. I mean, if somebody would've told me two months ago that I would've killed just to sit on my bed with my headphones in and do homework right here, right now…I probably would've laughed in their face. I grab a potato chip off the napkin of them I have next to me and pop it into my mouth, just as I start to sing the chorus of the song I'm listening to. "Don't turn away, I need to say…you're the one who leaves me breathless. Don't run away, I want to stay…as long as I can be with you. Now I know, I never meant to break a promise. I never meant to say goodbye. Don't turn away. You're the one who leaves me breathless…." I clear my throat and move on to the next homework problem.

I swear to god that my iPod is completely on shuffle. It's just been batting a thousand tonight, with the crappy, sad love songs. So far, I've been "Babied" to death by Justin Bieber, "Broken Hearted Girled" to tears by Beyonce, "Just Give Me a Reasoned" to annoyance by P!nk and the dude in the song with her, "One Thinged" to heartache by One Direction, and I'm currently being "Breathlessed" by Cascada. In truth, all I can think about is Alex. I relate all lyrics back to how I feel about him, and I just feel like a really big dope. It seems as though my iPod just doesn't want me to be happy tonight, though. It wants me to be sad, suffering the effects of a broken heart. Because seriously, every single chorus to every single song that I've listened to so far just… UGH.

I thought it was just fate while I was bobbing my head to the whole, "I thought you'd always be my baby, baby, baby oh!" part of the Justin Bieber song. Then I thought it was a coincidence when I was humming the "Just give me a reason, just a little bit's enough" line in the P!nk song. I realized I was halfway to being desperate when I started thinking that "Get out, get out, get outta my head and fall into my arms instead!" was coming out of my mouth with the whole One Direction song. Now, I see that I'm just pathetic here.

Is it also weird that I can't stop checking up on him? I'm obviously not texting him or anything, because for one, I don't want to seem desperate, even though I am. And for two, I can't. Mom gave me back my phone, but only because she's worried about me going to school tomorrow with no way of contacting her if I get into some trouble or whatever. At the end of my visit with Mrs. Who today, she told me that I should tell mom the truth about what happened in the bathroom last week when I came home crying. I told her, she gave me my phone back and told me to be careful at school tomorrow. But anyway, that's beside the point. I have my phone back, but it doesn't do anything. She went online and made it so I can't text at ALL, but I can make phone calls. I don't like to talk on the phone, but whatever…it works.

Anyway, I've already caught myself six times today on Facebook, trying to check and see what Alex has been up to. He hasn't posted anything today, and I don't know if that's good news or bad news. I kinda want to know if he got home okay last night. He was drunk too and all, so I have a right to be worried about him, don't I? He was with Jackson. I should try to text April and ask her if she knows if they got home okay. I close my chemistry notebook, shove it back inside of my binder, take my headphones out of my ears and leave out of my room to. Shane will let me use his phone to text April.

I turn the knob to his door and walk right inside. "Shane, I need to use your…" It takes me a second, but I do realize that his bedroom is empty. His bed is made, his room is clean and the lights are off. _He didn't say if he had anything to do today… where's he at? _I shut his door and turn around to go downstairs. I hold onto the railing and leisurely run down the steps. Nick and Matt are both sitting on the couch playing a videogame, so I duck my head when I run past the TV so I don't disturb them. There's also a little girl sitting between the two of them just watching. I don't think I've ever seen her before. She must be one of their little friends, but I don't ask. It's rare for the two of them to be so quiet and content, and I don't want to disrupt that. I turn and walk past the kitchen, into the computer room, where I know mom is bound to be. "Mom, where did Sh… Oh…hello." I quickly change the tone of my voice when I realize that there's more than just mom sitting in the computer room. I wasn't aware that she had company.

"What do you need, Jo?" Mom puts down the bottle of soft-core beer she had turned up to her lips and asks me. I find myself stumbling backwards towards the door I just came through. I sort of recognize some of these people…I've seen them before. Like the one woman sitting on the small couch next to mom is the one that cut my hair for me. And both of Shane's aunts are sitting across from the two of them. And I don't recognize the three men sitting on the big couch…nor do I recognize the girl sitting in a chair beside the fireplace.

"I was just um…" I'm slightly uncomfortable. Not because these people make me feel uncomfortable, because of course, they're just Shane's family and they're obviously good people. But because all eyes are on me right now and that's just…unsettling. "I was just wondering where Shane went. He didn't say he was leaving out tonight…" I rock back and forth on my feet out of nervousness. "I needed to ask him a question."

"He went over to Leah's for a couple hours. He should be back around eight or nine. Do you want me to call him for you?"

"No… it's not that important." I lie my head against the doorframe and sigh. "I should go finish my homework, actually. Before it gets late." I pick my head up and turn to leave the room.

"Wait, Jo… come here." She calls me back, so I stop dead in my tracks and turn back around. I raise one of my eyebrows to let her know that I'm listening. "I don't think everybody here knows you…" She turns her head away from me and motions to her guests. "I told you guys about my Jo, didn't I?" _Your Jo? I don't know exactly how I feel about that… ehh. _She motions for me to come closer inside the room, so I do. I stand right beside her and she holds my hand. I guess she could tell that I was a little uneasy about being the topic of everyone's conversation. "Anyway guys, this is Jo…my long lost baby girl." She chuckles at the end of that, and I just crack a half-smile. "And Jo, you remember my friend Vanessa." I nod. Vanessa's the girl that cut my hair. "And you already know my sisters." I nod again. "I don't think you've ever met their husbands. That's Rory." She points to one of the men. "That's Jim… and the one right there is Rory's brother Tom…and that's Tom's girlfriend, Maura." _That's a lot of names to remember. I'm terrible with names. Okay, so Tom… Rory…Maura…Jim…Vanessa… two sisters. Got it… I think._

Before I can even open my mouth to tell them that it's nice to meet them, the girl…Maura speaks up. "You're the prettiest thing I've ever seen in my life…" I feel my cheeks redden as I blush. "Goodness Kelly, she really is pretty…you weren't kidding."

"I told you she was cute." Mom pulls me a little closer to her and pats my butt. Grammy used to pat my butt sometimes, and I thought it was embarrassing even then. So yeah, I'm embarrassed when mom does it. "She's a headache, but she's a cutie…I'll give her that." I look down at mom with a "throw-me-a-bone-here" look on my face. She winks at me.

"She's not usually this quiet…don't let her fool you." One of Shane's aunts says. I don't know their names. I think they're twins, and I can't tell them apart, plus I never made it a point to learn their names. I'm expected to know their names already, so I think it'd be rude if I asked. So I just won't. "You're usually talking our ears off, aren't you little bit?" _Okay, that's the aunt that I really like. I like them both equally, but the one has always been more friendly and funny to me. She's been calling me "little bit" for as long as I've known her._

I cross my arms across my chest and shake my head. Maura starts talking again. "Do you have contacts in, sweetie?"

"Me?" I point to myself, unsure if she's talking to me or somebody else in the room. "No… I don't wear contacts."

"Oh my gosh…what color are your eyes? They're so pretty!" It's not that I don't like her, because I do. She compliments me…what's there not to like about her? I just don't know what to say to her. I feel like "thank you" would scream CONCEITED with a capital C…so I don't know what else to say.

"Uh… they're brown…ish. Kinda green. I dunno…it depends on the day." I shrug my shoulders.

"You're so pretty!" She really seems like she's…amazed or something. I don't know if she's just trying to get on my good side or whatever, but she's lying. I don't even look good right now. I have on a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top. My hair is so ratty and tangled that I just threw it at the top of my head in a bun. I don't look pretty right now. I look down at the ground to hide my face because I'm blushing…hard. "Come here… I just have to look at you…"

_I really just want to go finish my homework. I have algebra to do. _But because I respect my elders, I just uncross my arms and sidestep the chairs and couches to make my way over to her. She's really pretty too, actually. She's light-skinned with deep brown, almost reddish hair and brown eyes. I like her haircut. Her hair just barely touches her shoulders, but it's shorter in the back and longer in the front. I like it a lot. Mom takes a quick sip of her beer and then speaks up. "Maura, you're not turning my baby into one of those bitchy, conceited little stuck up princesses. So forget about it."

"You're gonna have to pry her off the poor girl Kelly, you know that." One of the men sitting on the couch winks at mom. "Poor Kendall is a tomboy to her heart but she insists on dressing her up every single day."

"…You have a little girl?" I clear my throat and ask the woman that's infatuated with me.

"Yeah…the little one in there with the little boys? That's my girl. Her name's Kendall." She's just looking at me…like I'm a rare species or something. "Kendy's insistent on being a tomboy…but little girls should dress like little girls. Especially when they're pretty little girls."

"…You and my grandma would've gotten along famously." I giggle just thinking about how that was Grammy's philosophy too. "And thank you…for thinking I'm pretty."

"…Geez, I can definitely tell you're not Kelly's biological kid. The boys are not as sweet as you are."

I bite my lip and smile. "Thanks…"

"Oooh, wait Maura." The lady that cut my hair for me stands up for a second and lunges forward at me. "Look at the child's hair." Real gently, she wraps her fingers around the scrunchie that's holding my hair in a bun and tugs it. "And it's ALL real…every last strand is attached to her scalp. No extensions."

"Oh my god…Kelly, can I have her?" Maura runs her hands through my hair and I laugh. Now it's just funny…how much like a baby doll they're treating me. "You don't need her. You know you don't want her. Can I have her? She's beautiful."

"You guys need to leave my baby alone." Mom stands up and walks over to me. "No, you can't have my Jojo… I love my Jojo. She's a kid, not a puppy. I'm not just going to give her away…" Mom wraps her arms around me and kisses me on my cheek. _You feel weird… you feel funny. I've never…felt like this before. I kinda like it. _"It took me a long time to get my Jojo. I'm not just gonna give her away. Plus, she likes it here. Don't you, Jo?"

I nod my head. "Yeah, I like it here." _I really, really, really do. I think… Now I'm just guessing here, but I really think…_

_That I might have a family with these people._

* * *

"So, what kind of punishment did you get?" I swat a loose wave of my hair out of my way and barrel my hands down in my pockets. I really didn't realize how much I missed April until I saw her this morning at breakfast. She was busy all morning getting things ready for her mid-term grade report, so we didn't speak. Now, walking through the halls on our ways to our third period classes, is the first time we've spoken in person since Saturday night. "Oooh yeah, and what happened with you and J-A-C-K-S-O-N?" I just need to be caught up on just about everything.

"I got yelled at and I'm not really allowed to go anywhere this weekend… but that's about it. My parents really laid down the law, eh?" Her long red ponytail swings lively as we walk and weave through the crowds of people in the hallway together. "And just about the same thing that happened with you and your stupid head." She slows her walking pace to a stop once she reaches her destination. I stop walking right along with her to talk to her for a few more seconds. "You know Jackson…never wanting to admit that he did anything wrong. He basically played the whole, 'we weren't really together' card, so I shouldn't be mad that he slept with Stephanie. I mean, what is that?" I love April's agitated voice. It's kind of cute. "I keep trying to explain to him that I'm not even mad, I'm still just hesitant to trust him… but he's not even hearing that. So if we can't find common ground, we're just agreeing to disagree right now."

"…Sounds like Alex." I sigh. "Not the whole cheating thing of course, but the whole hardheaded thing. I know he misses me… he's just pissy with me right now. So I'm just gonna try and wait it out…and hope for the best." I look down the hallway towards my class. I'd better get going. I have Spanish next period and my teacher hates it if we're late. "I think it's like you and Jackson with me and Alex. We're both single, but we both know what the situation is. I'm not looking for another guy and he's not looking for another girl. It's like that."

"You sure about that?" April raises her eyebrow. "Like…really sure? You know Alex bounces back quickly, don't you?"

"Yeah, but not THAT quickly. We've only been broken up for two days."

"…When you get a free minute in class, check out his Facebook page." She seems like she has something to tell me, but she's beating around the bush with it. "We'll talk next period." She disappears into her classroom and leaves me here. I bite my lip and roll my eyes to the back of my head. I turn myself around and start walking to the appropriate end of the hallway for me to head to my class. I honestly don't know what April's talking about. I've been checking Alex's Facebook since last night and I didn't see anything on there that concerned me. Unless I missed something… I don't know.

I turn into my Spanish classroom and stomp to my seat in the back of the room. Heather and Stephanie both sit in front of me, but neither one of them are here right now. I'm not even gonna lie. I'm in the worst mood possible right now. I swear I'm going to pitch a fit if I see that Alex has another girlfriend already. I'm going to freak out. I take my hands out of my pockets and put my arms down at my sides. I'm blankly staring off into space, but my leg is shaking. My leg shakes when I'm pissed…always. I'm going to flip out if I see something I don't like. Whatever, I might as well get it over with.

I shove my hand down inside my purse and produce my cell phone. I guess I'm just glad that mom didn't turn off the internet on my phone, because I really need it right now. I unlock my phone and tap on my Facebook app. I go up to the search bar and type in "Alex Karev." I tap on his profile and bite my lip while I wait for it to load. I can feel myself getting angry and I'm not even going to attempt to control it right now. I look around at his profile before I scroll down to his statuses, just to see if anything's different. I used to be his cover picture…well, the two of us used to be. He took that off yesterday, though. I already saw that. His relationship status used to say, "In a relationship with Jo Wilson." He changed that yesterday, too. Already saw that. Already cried about that. I scroll down to his status updates. _He updated A LOT since the last time you checked it. _I start reading them, from most recent to least recent.

**Alex Karev: **She's amazing tho *thumbs up emoticon* (12 likes, 0 comments) 11:35 p.m., 10 hours ago

**Alex Karev: **People (females) are so dumb these days. **–Feeling annoyed. **(20 likes, 0 comments) 10:20 p.m. 11 hours ago

**Olivia Harper: **Tonight was a success! *heart emoticon* **-With Alex Karev **(7 likes, 4 comments) 9:30 p.m., 12 hours ago

**Alex Karev: **I do not want my senior year to end like this. (1 like, 0 comments) 8:34 p.m., 13 hours ago

First of all, who the hell is Olivia? I've never even heard of her. And what does she mean by, "Tonight was a success"? I will end her life… does she not understand that? I will… oh my god. That's so annoying. I'm…BEYOND irritated. And just out of spite, I tap "like" on her post. I tap on the comments on the post that she tagged him in, so I can read them.

**Alex K: **I had fun tonight too :) p.s. don't eat pickels if they don't look like pickels lol

**Olivia H: **they looked like pickles to me! lmao we totally have to do that again sometime.

**Alex K: **We will. See u tomorrow in school. Gn.

**Olivia H: **night! :p

WOW. JUST… WOW. I can't even put words on how irritated I am. No, irritated doesn't cover it. Irritated, pissed off, annoyed, furious, defeated…those words don't even hold a candle to how I'm feeling. I swear I'm going to flip the fuck out. What the hell was that?! Who the hell is she?! Who the fuck is Olivia?! That's MY boyfriend. I know we're broken up, but that's MY property. She better back up… and I mean it.

Oooh I need to talk to April.

**x x x **

"If they were serious, he would've changed his relationship status. He didn't change it yet, Jo. Why are you flipping shit? You're reading too much into it. To me, it seems like they're just friends… they didn't say anything about being together. And… I don't know. I think you just need to calm down about it for a second. Calm down and evaluate it. It's not that serious for you to be shaking about it." She's really trying to calm me down but it's not working. She's talking to a blank wall here. I'm not hearing a thing she's saying to me. "This is exactly why I was thinking that I shouldn't have even told you about it. You're freaking out for no reason."

"No fuck that, April." I bite my lip and just let my leg uncontrollably shake. "I swear to god I might punch that bitch in her face if I see her. I might not even be able to control myself. I hate her and I've never even met her. Who the fuck even is she? Does she even go here? I really might punch her teeth down her throat."

"Have you ever seen the real skinny redhead that plays on the soccer team? She's a majorette too. She's real skinny…red hair. Not natural red, either. It's like…cheap box-dye red."

"No, but I'll be looking for her now. I'll slap the shit out of her and I'm not kidding." I can't even control my anger. "And he called her AMAZING? Like… he never fucking called me amazing! What a fucking hoe. She's a fucking hoe."

"Jo, you don't even know the girl. Just calm down…"

"NO, SHE'S A HOE." I push my hair back out of my face. "Any bitch that'll jump to a man after he's FRESH out of a relationship is a HOE, because she was waiting for it! She was fucking waiting for us to break up. Like… ew!"

"Can't you just be happy that he's happy?"

I purse my lips and give her a real sarcastic tone. "…Yeah. You know, I just wanna see him happy… even if it's not with me."

"See, that's the spirit, Jo… that's it."

"JUST KIDDING, APRIL!" I move my hair again. I really should've packed a damn ponytail holder. I wasn't thinking. "I'm not that goddamn mature. I'm mature, but I'm not THAT damn mature. I'll beat both of them straight up." I look up at the bathroom ceiling and take a deep breath. "How many days out is it for fighting again? I might just thrash the bitch at lunch and go home." I wipe my sweaty palms on my pants and huff. I dressed to fight today. Not on purpose, though. I just didn't feel like dressing up for school this morning, so I put on a pair of light grey cropped sweatpants and a plain black t-shirt. I have on sneakers. The only deficit is that my hair is down, but it'll be easy to snatch a ponytail off Leah or Stephanie.

"You're not fighting her. I refuse to let you fight her. Just… just calm down." April puts her hands on my cheeks. "Let me talk to Alex at lunch. I'll talk to him at lunch, I'll see what the deal is. I'll see if he and Olivia are just friends or if they're trying to start dating. If they're just friends, you need to stand down. But if they're trying to get together, then you have every right to be pissed off. I'll listen to you vent about beating her up for hours…if they're trying to get together. But if they're just friends, you gotta CHILL."

"Whatver…" I hop down off the bathroom sinks and wipe my face. I started sweating from yelling and being so pissed. "I gotta go back to Spanish… I'll see you at lunch."

"See you. And calm down…okay? Calm down."

"Mhm." I run a hand through my hair and stalk out of the bathroom. I stop at the water fountains to grab a drink before I head back to class. I'm so irritated right now… oh my god. I don't know what I'm going do if I don't calm down like April told me to. I have half a mind to really beat the crap out of this Olivia chick. I'll try not to, but I just might. I turn around and start walking back towards my Spanish class. Some random kid is out in the hallway with me, so I walk on the opposite side of the hallway.

"Hey, Jo…" Random kid calls my name. I quickly whip my head around and look at him. He has shaggy, blonde, surfer-boy hair and blue eyes. I don't know him.

"What?" I sorta snap at him.

"…You and Karev…endgame?" He flashes me a braces-filled smile and puts his hands inside the pockets of his blue jeans. The orange shirt he has on really compliments his eyes, I think. He's not ugly… but I don't know who the hell he is. And I'm irritated, so that shows.

"Yeah. Why?"

"Me and you should go out and get to know each other sometime…" I roll my eyes. "…What do you say?"

"No." I stomp away from him and to my classroom. I'm too irritated to even talk to him right now. I'm sorry for being so rude, because he was actually pretty nice and he wasn't ugly. But he caught me at a horrible time.

* * *

"Hey, babe." As I'm stuffing my legs back inside of my sweatpants, someone slaps me on my ass. "When am I taking you out to dinner?" I turn my head fast to see who did it. I roll my eyes when I see who it was.

"Not now, Heather. I'm literally in the worst fucking mood." Usually, I laugh and play along with Heather's antics. It's clear at this point that she has a full blown, lady-crush on me. She always playfully slaps my ass, acts like she's trying to kiss me, calls me her babe, etc. It usually doesn't bother me. But my mood is horrible today. I even PARTICIPATED in gym class, that's how bad my mood is. We played dodgeball today, so I took the opportunity to let some anger out by throwing balls. I roll some deodorant underneath my armpits and rummage through my gym bag for my shirt.

"What's wrong, babe? Still bummed out about the Alex thing?" She sits down on the benches next to me.

"Heather, stop harassing Jo… you're weird at this point." Leah takes her pants off and walks over towards us in her underwear.

"Jo's my babe…and she knows that." Heather winks at me. I know that they're only trying to cheer me up, but it's not working.

"Screw Alex, Jo… you don't need him." Steph tries her hand at making me feel better.

"No, it's not even that." I pull my shirt over my head and yank my hair through the head hole. "It's the fact that I'm in a horrible mood and people keep fucking with me. I'm gonna beat somebody's ass today if people don't just leave me alone." I shove my feet back into my sneakers. "Not you either, Heather. You didn't even do it."

"Yeah, I totally get it. But I mean…." Leah busies herself with getting dressed as well. "He doesn't have to keep broadcasting the fact that you guys broke up."

"It's not that, either." I shove my gym bag inside the locker I share with Steph and shut it. "I could care less that every hoe in the school knows that he's single. I don't care about that. What I care about is how every hoe in the fucking school CARES that he's single. Like… as far as I'm concerned, he's still my boyfriend…you know?" I grab my purse. "Whatever, I'll see you guys at lunch. I gotta get outta here."

**x x x **

"Did you calm down like I told you to?" April asks as soon as we meet up by the entrance of the cafeteria. "I talked to Alex last period, and I'm not telling you what he said until you calm down." She starts walking towards the lunch lines and I walk close beside her, following her lead. "So be calm… or else I'm not telling you."

"Just tell me, April. I'm NOT gonna calm down, so you can forget that." From the corner of my eye, I see him. And everything in my body just…shuts down. It hurts. It hurts so bad to know that I have look at him. I can look at him…I can see him…but I can't touch him. And I can't hold him. And I can't kiss him…and that hurts. I try to act like I'm not looking at him, but I am. I'm not staring, and I'm not making it noticeable. But I'm looking at him…

_He shaved… look, he shaved. And he's wearing brown. Brown's my favorite color on him. Why's he have to be so perfect? _He's wearing a long sleeved, brown Abercrombie sweater that really makes his muscles…pop. Brown makes his eyes look so sparkly. That's why I love him in brown. And he's wearing my favorite pair of jeans. And his shoes coordinate so nicely with his shirt. He's perfect. His hair… I just want to run my hands through it. I want to play with his hair one more time. I want to hug him and listen to his heartbeat. _Don't cry…whatever you do, don't cry. _

"I'll tell you when we sit down." Ape picks up a lunch tray and starts making her way through the lunch line. Even though I'm not hungry, I pick up a tray too. I grab a container of purple grapes and a bottle of water. I'll probably get chicken nuggets, like I always do. I slide my tray through the lunch line so the ladies can serve us. I'm so miserable. And to make matters worse, I'm going to sit at me and Shane's old table with April today, and we have a PERFECT view of the senior table.

I gather up my lunch tray and follow April over to the condiment table. I grab a fork that I won't need, squirt some ketchup on my tray that I won't use and grab some napkins. I put my tray down at the table and sit down, across from where Ape's sitting. I'm just… in a really awful mood. Seeing him made it worse. Okay, I admit that I probably was going to eat my lunch before I saw him. But now…I just don't have an appetite. I'm not hungry. I use my fork and just play with my grapes. "…Well?" I sigh, not even sure if I want to know what she has to tell me anymore.

"So I asked him if him and Olivia were starting to become a thing. I was just like…. 'So are you and Jo really over'? and he was like 'Yeah. She's just too confused for me and I don't need that.' And then…" Her voice trails off. "Hold on, I have to go see what Mer wants. She's motioning for me to go over there. I'll be right back, I promise." She slides out her chair and stands up, leaving her tray. I sigh and just pick through my food. I really just miss my boyfriend. I feel like I lost my best friend.

I pick my head up and look around. At the cheerleader table, Heather is sitting next to Aaron and they're in a really deep conversation. Steph and Lexie are hysterically laughing at something. Leah has her head on Shane's shoulder and Shane…he looks happy. Genuinely happy, which makes me smile a little bit. I'm just not sure how this happened. How did everybody end up happy, and I ended up so… alone?

I told myself that I wouldn't look over that way, but I think I lied to myself at the same time. Because my head just slowly turns and I look over at the senior table. Cristina and Meredith are both chatting away at April. It looks really important, whatever they're talking about, because April is nodding and her face is really serious. I can't help but notice how Jackson's looking at April, though. He looks at her like she's the sun, the moon…all the planets in the solar system. I can tell that he's trying to play it off like he's reading the sign on the bannister behind her, but I can tell that he's really looking at her. And then, there's him. Sitting in his usual spot, right next to where I used to sit. I'm halfway expecting my old spot to be empty…and my stomach starts to hurt when I see that it's not. A petite little redhead is sitting in my seat. And she's making him smile. I can't take this anymore.

I stand up and pick up my tray. I throw my tray in the trashcan and fix myself. I want to look presentable. I know I'm wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt, and my hair is fifty kinds of messy right now, but I can try. I've been told that I'm naturally pretty. I pick up my purse and start walking across the cafeteria, over to them. I can make it seem like I'm there to talk to April… I think. I swallow my pride and walk right over there, and stand right next to Ape.

"Hey, hairball. What's been cookin'?" Cristina is the first one to greet me.

I hold my hands and crack my knuckles. "Nothin'." My eyes wander over towards Alex. He hasn't even noticed that I'm standing here. "Hey Ape, I'm going—"

"Wilson, I heard that you can't handle your liquor. How are you ever supposed to come drinking with us?" Meredith takes a dig at me. I laugh just a little. She winks at me, so I know her teasing is just friendly.

"Yeah, um… April, I'm going to the bathroom. I didn't want you to go back to the table and think I abandoned you." My eyes glance back over at him again, then up to the redhead. She has a really fat face and a really big nose. She's ugly…no understatement. Ew. I'd be less offended if she was pretty. He downgraded. I know I'm not the prettiest bitch in the school, but he seriously downgraded. He could've at least upgraded. Olivia laughs all weird and obnoxiously and leans on Alex's shoulder, like he told her the funniest joke she's ever heard in her life. As always, my eyebrow perks up at that. I'm getting angry.

"Oh, Alex…" She gushes. Even her voice is ugly. It's all raspy and manly and ugly and ew oh my god she's just hideous. Call me a hater or jealous, but she is what she is…and she is UGLY. She bawls her hand up into a fist and playfully jabs him. _Yeah, that's it._

My legs have a mind of their own, at this point. I sidestep between the seats and stand right there, right next to Olivia. Alex glances at me, like he wants to ask me what I want. I clear my throat. "…Excuse you, but you're in my seat." _Yeah, excuse YOU…not excuse ME. _I cross my arms and tap my foot at her like an impatient mother. She looks up at me like she's genuinely confused and I just roll my eyes at her, like "YES BITCH I'M TALKING TO YOU."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I wasn't aware…Alex, you didn't tell me that this was…" She looks over at Alex. Alex just shakes his head like he's ashamed of me or something. Olivia nods her head like she just caught the whole drift. And me? Well, I'm still waiting for her to fucking MOVE. "Oh… Joooo." She drowns out the "o" in my name, which annoys the hell out of me. "Hey, I'm Olivia…Olivia Harper." She offers me her hand.

"…I didn't ask for your name." I put my purse down on the floor and purse my lips.

"Right." She folds her hands under her chin and just looks at me. "Well, can I help you?"

I tilt my head like I didn't understand what she just asked me. "…Can I help YOU? I said you're in my seat, now get up before I move you."

"Since when is this your seat?"

"Since I've sat in it for the past month. Now are you going to get up or should I move you?"

"Funny… I didn't see a name on this seat."

"Stand up and I'll show you where it's at." I don't know when I acquired a natural smart mouth, but I'm using it.

Alex stands up and clears his throat. "Come on, Liv…. If she wants the seat, let her have the seat." He picks up his tray. "Least the seat is one thing she can make her mind up about." He mumbles.

I squint my eyes at him. Olivia stands up and rolls her eyes at me. "I'm coming, Alex." She looks over her shoulder at me. "I still don't see a name on the seat." I bite my lip…hard.

I lift my hand up and smack her tray. "The name's right there, bitch." I didn't smack the tray hard enough to make everything fall. Only her milk fell.

She just shakes her head. "In case you didn't notice little girl… he's not your responsibility anymore. And even though Alex and I are just FRIENDS…. That's still not your business. And I can't help it if you feel threatened by me."

"Please. I wore SWEATPANTS today and I still look better than you. You couldn't beat me on your best day, if I was having my WORST day. I'm not threatened by you." I glance over at Alex. "…Have fun." I pick my purse up and just walk away.

Because that's all I can do.


	55. Crush, Crushing, Crushed

**Mon, Nov 15, 2013**

**2:15 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**April: **mom it's jo. april's giving me a ride home from school today & i'm just wondering if i can run to northside county with her. please?

**2:27 p.m.**

**(804) 555-9690: **I don't think so. U R still grounded

**2:30 p.m.**

**April: **i know but she has to grab something from the fredrick's market before she goes home. please just let me go with her? i'll be home by 3:30 and my homework will be done by the time you get home i promise. please mom can i just go?

**(804) 555-9690: **Do not make me tell u no again Jo. U R grounded so I want U to go straight home

**April: **i promise i'll have my homework and stuff done by the time you get home. please let me just go with her. i have to talk to her about something since we don't see each other in school and i can't text her on my phone anymore. i won't ask for nothing else i swear.

**(804) 555-9690: **I want U home by 3:30. If U R later than that, U R grounded 4 another week. 3:30 N don't push it JO

**April: **i won't. thanks mommy.

I hand April back her phone and fix the strap of my purse on my shoulder as the two of us walk out the main doors of the school. "I'm allowed to ride with you, but I have to be home by 3:30. Thanks for letting me use your phone to do some begging." If I'm being honest, I have to admit that I don't really want to go with her. Northside County is only twenty minutes away from where we are, here in the Central District but that's not the point. After a horrible day at school today, all I want to do is go home, take a shower and take a nap. But April still hasn't told me what she and Alex talked about, so that's really the only reason why I'm riding with her. Plus, it might help me to just vent about Alex and Olivia.

"I'll have you home by 3:30. I don't have to go all the way into Northside County. The market is just outside of it, so it shouldn't take us that long to get there." She pulls her car keys out of her back pocket and double clicks on the unlock button. The headlights on her car flash when she does that. She opens up her back door to put her purse and her books in the backseat, and I climb into the passenger's side. We're the only two people in the student parking lot at the moment because we're only just now leaving. School let out ten minutes ago, but April had to run up to the media center to print something out after dismissal. "If I have you home after 3:30, your mom probably won't let you hang out with me anymore after that. She'll think that I'm a bad kid. I get you drunk and bring you home late. I'm such a bad influence on you." She giggles and slides into the driver's seat.

"Oh please. I can just imagine what YOUR parents must think of me." I buckle my seatbelt across my body. As soon as she turns the key in the ignition and switches the car on, her music starts blaring quite loudly. While she takes a moment to back out of her parking space and adjust herself, I roll down my window. I tap the volume button on her radio and clear my throat. "So yeah… what did Alex say? What's so important about it that you couldn't have told me in school?"

"Geez…so jumpy." She turns her wheel and speeds on out of the parking lot and onto the main road. "For the record, I was totally gonna tell you in the bathroom at lunch. But after I saw how you acted, I decided not to. I didn't wanna be responsible for Olivia getting her head knocked off or anything."

"…So it's bad, isn't it?" I cross my arms and sigh. "I think I really lost him this time. I should probably just give up at this point, shouldn't I?"

"It's not that bad." She turns her radio completely off so that we're in silence. "We were in senior seminar, and I sat by him; specifically so I could ask him about Olivia for you. I didn't make it obvious that I was trying to pry just so I could have some gossip to tell you. I made it seem like I was just making small talk. But anyway, it was like this. I sat by him, I told him that he sure looked like a grumpus today. And he told me to get lost. And I told him that me and him could be grumpuses together, because we're both going through bad breakups. He told me that me and Jackson will be back together by the end of the week and I told him that him and you would be back together by the end of the week too."

"And what'd he say to that?" I feel my hopes rise, just a little.

"He said probably not, because he's not interested in anything to do with you anymore." She says that so casually. Deep inside, my heart starts to ache. That stung…really bad. "And then I asked him if that's why he was trying to get with Olivia. And he said that him and Olivia were seriously just friends. And then I asked him what he meant on Facebook last night about the pickles and stuff, and he said that they went to Denny's last night and that the pickles thing was an inside joke."

"They went on a date?" I feel like I'm going to cry. "How do they even know each other? Did they date before?"

"You know Alex has a past…"

"Yeah, but…" I take a breather. "Don't tell me anymore. I don't want to know anymore…"

"But I'm not even halfway done with the story." She takes one hand off the wheel and puts it on my kneecap. "Jo, it's okay. Seriously, it's okay. Maybe you and Alex just weren't meant for each other. It happens sometimes. It sucks, but it totally happens. I don't know… sometimes things just don't work out. And sometimes it's for the better that they don't work out. It's okay…" As soon as she finishes the "okay" in "it's okay", tears just start flooding down my face. "Aw…Jo don't cry. Come on, don't cry. Just let me tell you the second half of the story… it's better than the first half."

"I don't want to hear it." I don't even bother wiping my tears away, either. "Why would I want to hear about someone that doesn't want me? I fell in love with him and now he hates me. And he has another girl. It's like…" I sniff and look down at my hands. "Up until today, I still had a little bit of hope that maybe I could talk to him today and I could tell him that I'm sorry, I made a mistake and I wanted him back. But now… I don't even have hope. I think this is what a broken heart feels like…"

"Just listen to the second part of the story." She hands me a tissue that she produced from the makeup bag resting between her seat and the cup holders. "You know why Mer and Cristina called me over to the table? Because they overheard you tell me in the hallway before fourth period that you got asked out by some guy. And they wanted to know if it was true. And they told me that there are a bunch of guys in their morning classes that have been saying that Alex is an idiot for letting you go…and a bunch of them were asking Mer for your number…"

"I don't care! I'm so serious, April… I don't care. I don't care if the hottest guy on the planet asked me out. I want MY Alex back… and it doesn't seem like I'm going to get him, so I just don't even care about anything anymore." I snap at her.

"I'm not done!" She snaps back. "So, Jackson was being all nosy and he overheard me, Mer and Cristina's conversation at lunch before you came over. And apparently, in seventh period, he said something to Alex about how all these guys want you now that you're single. And Jackson told him about the junior that asked you out in the hallway. And I heard from multiple sources, not just Jackson, that Alex was pissed when he heard about that. So obviously he still has feelings for you."

"Then why is he taking Olivia out on dates? He doesn't have any feelings for me… fuck that. I lost him. I messed it up for myself, like I always freaking do. I mess everything up…like a little idiot. It just hurts because I really miss him… I just want to hug him, you know? That's my babe…"

"But Jo, you really have to think about it. Why would Alex get mad at the fact that you're being asked out, if he really didn't have feelings for you? Jackson told me that he was PISSED. He was going crazy trying to figure out which junior it was that asked you out, and Jackson even asked him why he cared so much. Alex tried to like…play it off and act like he didn't really care that much in the end, but Jackson told me that he was so PISSED about it."

"…Jackson told you this?"

"Yeah. I heard it with my own ears. He told me."

"….Jackson?"

"Yeah… Jackson."

"You're talking to Jackson again? And you didn't tell me?!"

"…I didn't want you to be mad about it. I just felt bad that you and Alex aren't together and me and Jackson are working towards it. I felt like you probably thought it was easier for me and you to relate to each other when you thought we were both going through breakups, so I didn't want to make you feel alone. It's not serious. We're just not fighting anymore. We're not together, we're working on it." She bites her lip. "But I can still empathize with you. Don't think that just because my relationship isn't really on the rocks anymore I can't feel for you and relate to you. Because I do. You can still tell me stuff."

"Why would I be mad?" I finally take the tissue she gave me and wipe my face with it. I sniff and clear my throat, free of any indication that I was just crying like that. "I'm happy for you. I'm happy that you and Jackson are trying to work it out. I'm not mad…and believe me, you're still going to hear my mouth about Alex. Believe me."

"Oh…. well, I'm still sorry for not telling you." She shrugs her shoulders. "But if you want me to be honest with you Jo, I really don't think you have anything to worry about with Olivia. I don't think he's that into her. They seriously might just be friends. But… I mean, I'm totally on your side. So I'll keep pumping Jackson for information. Alex is gonna tell Jackson more than he's gonna tell me anyway."

"…Okay. Whatever." I shrug my shoulders too. Only because I'm seriously tired of being so depressed over Alex at the moment, I lunge forward and turn her music back up. So she catches the drift that I don't want to talk about it anymore, I start to sing…hoping she'll join me and take that as a sign that I'm done with the topic. "123, 123 drink… 123, 123 drink… 123, 123 drink…throw 'em back 'til I lose count…" I whisper.

April turns the song up to a deafening volume and sings the song louder than me, and a thousand times more accurate. "IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'M GONNA SWING FROM THE CHANDELIER…. FROM THE CHANDELIER…" I can't help but laugh at how she's screaming the song, but it's so accurate because you just have to scream it in order to sing it. I guess that's how I know that April's a keeper. She's making me laugh, despite the fact that all I want to do is crawl up in a ball and cry. "IIIIIIIIIIIII'M GONNA LIVE LIKE TOMORROW DOESN'T EXISTTTT. LIKE IT DOESN'T EXISTTTTT. IIIIIII'M GONNA FLY LIKE A BIRD THROUGH THE NIGHTTTT…." She nudges me with my elbow. "Come on… I know it's just singing, but it'll make you feel better. To scream, I mean."

I twist my lips in an awkward motion. _What the hell do you have to lose at this point? _"IIIIIIIIIII'M GONNA SWINNNNGGGG FROM THE CHAN-DUH-LEEERRRR FROM THE CHAN-DUH-LEEEERRR…" I scream the next part right along with her, and for the second time within the matter of a minute…

I laugh, even though I wanna cry.

* * *

**Mon, Nov 15, 2013**

**6:21 p.m.**

**Me: **Hey. If you're not busy, can we please talk for a second?

As ashamed as I am to say it, I cracked. I really just broke down and cracked. It's honestly as if the entire world is just against me, to be honest. I barely had any homework tonight, which means I have way too much free time. Call me crazy, but I really wish my teachers had saddled me with homework tonight. I wish I had so much homework that it would've taken me hours to get through all of it. If I had been assigned more than just one lousy chapter to read for English, I would've been too busy to even think about cracking. No, instead of being too busy to crack, I got home from the ride I took with April, read my English chapter and holed myself up in my room.

I've been in my room since I've been home. I haven't even gone out to pee, and dinner isn't done yet so I haven't been out to eat either. And I tried to go to sleep, but I failed at that too. So instead of forcing myself to take a nap, I sat in my bed and spent hours on Facebook. I accepted five friend requests from boys that go to my school. One's name was Ryan, one's name was Cody, one's name was Brandon, one's name was Tyler and the last one was named Chris. At the point of accepting them, I had decided to try to move on from Alex…but I couldn't. So I just stalked his page to read all of his most recent statuses.

And like a sick, obsessed little girl, I go back to his profile again. It's really sick what I'm doing to myself. I know that everything I read on his page will make me want to throw up and cry at the same time, but I can't stop looking. I can't stop checking up on him. That's bad, isn't it? Lifelessly, I start scrolling through the posts that I've already read within the last hour.

**Alex Karev: **Wish I could turn my brain off ugh (12 likes, 0 comments) 1 hour ago via iPhone

**Alex Karev: **Thinking gets u no where! *angry face emoticon* (5 likes, 0 comments) 1 hour ago via iPhone

**Alex Karev: **Haven't done this in a while so WCM? Lms. (18 likes, 8 comments) 2 hours ago via iPhone

**Alex Karev: **I hate when I txt someone & they read it but don't reply. Really grinds my gears. *angry face emoticon* (10 likes, 0 comments) 2 hours ago via web

That's all he's posted tonight so far. And again, even though I've already been through all the comments and likers, I tap to read the comments on his one status.

**Meredith G: **You do know what it's woman crush WEDNESDAY not Monday, right? lol

**Alex K: **who cares? People still liked it.

**Cristina Y: **oh we just thought that u didn't know what day it was. You're dumb like that sometimes.

**Alex K: **Why do u two insist on bullying me?

**Jackson A: **FINALLY they're off my case.

**Alex K: **shut up all three of you.

**Meredith G: **But if I like your status, can I be your woman crush please? :)

**Alex K: **yep.

I click out of the comments and just sigh. I won't lie. I'm one of the eighteen people that liked the status. He probably won't make me his woman crush thing, but I just thought that it'd be worth a shot. I guess I'd rather him make Meredith his woman crush thing, rather than anybody else. I'm okay with that. Like a lost soul, I tap on my messages to see if he replied yet. I just want to talk to him…that's all. Nope. He hasn't replied yet. Honestly, I've never really been into Facebook games. If somebody's playing stupid little Facebook games, I rarely ever participate, unless it's like Leah, Steph, Shane or Heather. I don't ever do them myself, because I'm just scared that nobody will like it.

I don't know, I'm kind of stuck wondering if Alex thinks it's desperate that I liked his WCM status thing. I posted a selfie that I took in the school bathroom today because I needed a new profile picture, and he liked the picture…so maybe we're both calling it truce? But I could be wrong. He could've accidentally liked the picture or something. I don't even care at this point. I'm desperate and I know it. Out of nowhere, a little red balloon pops up in my notifications section. _DID HE MESSAGE ME BACK? _I tap on it. …Oh, nope. _Olivia Harper accepted your friend request. Write on her timeline! _It says. I forgot I even requested her…whatever. I saw earlier from Shane's Facebook that she made Alex her "Man Candy Monday", so I requested her after that. Like I said, whatever.

I tap the "post a new status" button in the corner of my own Facebook and twiddle my thumbs while I think about what to say. I know I want to say something that's directed at him, but I want to be subtle…you know? _Just say it, it doesn't even matter. You already look desperate at this point. _Once I talk myself into saying what I want to say, I rapidly tap the letters on my keyboard and hit "post." It's short, simple, straight to the point and it's truthful. I refresh my newsfeed just to check that it really did post…and it did.

**Jo Wilson: **You're on my heart just like a tattoo. I'll always have you. *heart emoticon* (0 likes, 0 comments) Seconds ago, via iPhone

With that being said, I'm gonna go take a shower.

* * *

"Jo, I need you to take your car to school tomorrow. Don't think it means you're off punishment or anything, because you're not. I just need you and Shane both to come STRAIGHT home after school tomorrow." Mom puts two plates down in the middle of the kitchen table in front of me and Shane. I scoot the plate with more food on it towards me. "I mean it, you two. Do not stop anywhere. Do not pass GO, do not collect $200. Come straight home after school tomorrow. Do you two hear me?"

"Yes ma'am." Shane nods his head and dumps nearly the entire carton of sour cream on his plate. He's literally the grossest eater, ever. Mom made steak and baked potatoes for dinner and Shane uses the sour cream for his STEAK…not for his potato. He's gross. "Gimme the salt." He says to me.

"A simple 'please' wouldn't hurt you." I slide the salt across the table at him. "What for? Why do we have to come straight home, I mean. Is there something going on tomorrow?" I use a small knife to cut off a piece of my steak and dip it in ketchup.

"It's the sixteenth tomorrow, Jo." Mom puts two tinier plates in front of Nick and Matt and finally sits down to eat herself.

"…And?" I cut off another piece of steak.

"You remember what we have scheduled for the sixteenth, Shane?"

"Mhm." He nods his head as he works towards eating his baked potato.

"We're going down to the courthouse, Jo." Her tone is so cheerful.

I immediately drop my fork. "Look… I thought…" My entire mood just shifted. "I thought it was all over. He was sentenced and he's doing his time. I thought it was over…"

"Not that courthouse. The family courthouse, silly." She just looks at me like I should know what she's talking about now, but I'm still lost. Shane's smiling at me through his mouthful of food too. Does everybody know what's going on except for me? I just stare at them, waiting for an answer. Mom just busily eats her food, like it's not a big deal. "And then I was thinking that we could go to dinner to celebrate… sound like a plan, guys?" All three of the boys nod their heads. I'm so confused. "So you and Shane come straight home after school tomorrow, we're gonna go down to the courthouse, I'll forward the adoption paperwork, we'll go grab the boys out of school and then we'll go out to dinner."

"….You're still…" I can't help the smile that's on my face. "…You mean you still… wanna adopt me?"

"Of course I still wanna adopt you." She reaches over and touches my arm. "You're already my daughter, but why not make it official?"

"…Do you just have to sign papers?"

"Yeah…that's all I have to do on my part. My attorney's taking care of everything else and as soon as he gets the abandonment papers back in the mail, you're all mine."

"Do I have to change my last name and stuff?" I take a quick sip of my juice and put the cup back down. "No offense or anything, but I kinda wanna keep Wilson. For…my grandma and my grandpa. No offense,though…"

"Oh sweetie, you don't have to change your last name. You can keep your last name. You'll just legally be mine. You still want that, don't you?"

I nod my head. "Yeah….I just… I never thought it was gonna happen. I didn't really think you'd be able to track down both my parents and get them to sign stupid papers… I just… I didn't think it was gonna happen." I slide my chair out. "Excuse me…"

"…J, you don't have to… we just thought…" Shane tries to grab my arm.

"Get off me…" I rip away from him and leave out of the kitchen. I don't feel good all of a sudden.

"Jo! Honey, come back…" Mom's calling after me this time.

I walk through the living room and into the downstairs bathroom and shut the door. I open up the toilet seat and hover my face over it, looking down into the clear water below. I gotta puke…. I breathe in through my nose…out through my mouth. Tears are running hot and plentiful down my cheeks. I really have to puke, but it won't come out. I don't feel good. My stomach is so queasy.

"Jo… Jo, open the door." Mom's at the door, softly patting on it.

"…It's not locked." I mumble.

She twists the knob and opens it up. "…Are okay?" Immediately, she sweeps my hair back away from my face and holds it in her hand. "Sweetheart, things can stay just as they are right now if you want them to. I didn't mean to just spring that on you. I didn't mean to do that… I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable." She rubs my back. "That wasn't fair of me to put you on the spot like that."

"…It's not that." I shut the toilet seat because I don't think I'm going to puke anymore and stand straight up. "I'm not… I'm not mad at you… or anything. I just…" I look down. "I just didn't want you to see my cry, you know?" I rock back and forth on my feet. "And then I got all sick…and I just feel really weird right now. I don't…" I smash my lips together and rub my temple. "I'm not used to being wanted…and you guys want me. And… it feels really good. It feels…REALLY good that you want me…"

"…Aww…" She puts her arms around me and rocks with me in her arms. "You don't ever have to worry about me wanting you… I'm so excited to make you my daughter, sweetie." She kisses me on my cheek. "Why's it so hard for you to believe that I love you? Me and the boys love you. You're allowed to feel loved, Jo… you're allowed."

"Thank you…" I squeeze her really tight. I can't even thank her enough for everything. Just a month ago, I didn't even know where my next meal was coming from. I didn't know where I was going to lie my head at night. I didn't know where I'd sleep, where I'd live. And she gave me everything. How do I thank her for something like that?

I can't.

* * *

I just got the best news of my life at dinner. Literally, the BEST news of my life. I'm getting adopted. Legally adopted. I've been adopted before, but the last time I went through this, I was an infant. Somebody actually wants me. I feel…different. Somebody wants me. Somebody wants to take care of me…wants to be my mother. It's a good feeling, really it is. And as good a feeling as it is, I'm still feeling just a little bit sad. About Alex, of course. It's just that… it's been two hours and he hasn't replied to me. I don't know if he's seen it, because he hasn't been on Facebook since I sent it.

So like the desperate little girl I've shown myself to be, I lie in my bed with my phone in my hands, scrolling through Facebook as if something's changed within the last half hour. I still have six likes on the status I put up and I still have 23 likes on the selfie I posted earlier. I go up to the search bar and type in "Olivia Harper." I tap on her profile and just scroll through it. I go to the post she made about Alex being her "Man Crush/Candy Monday."

**Olivia Harper: **I rarely ever do these things, but my Man Candy Monday is this cutie right here! *heart-eyed emoticons* My best friend **-With Alex Karev **(40 likes, 6 comments) 3 hours ago, via web

I roll my eyes and click on the comments. I couldn't see them earlier on Shane's Facebook, but I can see them now because she accepted my friend request.

**Alex K: **Thanks Liv :)

**Taylor T: ***heart-eyed emoticons* he's perfect omg.

**Olivia H: **I knoww. Lol.

**Olivia H: **you're welcome bestie! ;)

**Taylor T: **are you guys a thing? Because you're totally cute together js.

**Olivia H: **No lol alex is just my best friend *heart emoticon*

Best friend my ass. That's code for "we'll be having sex soon" in my eyes. He started out as my best friend too. She really needs to back the hell off my boo. But I don't want to pick a fight with her, so I just like the entire post. Just so she knows that I seen it, I don't appreciate the disrespect, but I won't say anything. I saw it, though. And she needs to know that he's still mine. Just as I'm about to click off her page, I get a notification. Probably just another like on my status or picture. I tap on it and read it. _Alex Karev liked your status. _He liked it?! HE'S ON! HE'S ON! CODE RED! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! HE'S ONLINE RIGHT NOW!

I go back to my newsfeed and refresh it.

**Shane Ross: **I hate when people indirectly post about each other on here. Whatever you have to say, just say it to their face. (16 likes, 5 comments) 5 minutes ago, via web

I click on the comments, just to see if I can tell who he's talking about.

**Leah M: **lol ikr? btw, this is totally obvious who your talking about babe

**Shane R: **maybe they'll see this & shut up and talk to each other lol

**Stephanie E: **You shoulda tagged them both lmfao

**Shane R: **I would but the one is in the next room & she hits kinda hard soooo…

**Leah M: **LMFAO. I'll tag em. They need to work their shit out

**Heather B: **I hope they stay broken up lol that's my babeeee

**Shane R: **aren't u with his brother weirdo?

**Heather B: **not him! Jo's my babe!

**Stephanie: **im about to tag them both and tell them to just kiss and make up already

**April K: **hate to jump in on this, but I totally agree…

What are they even talking about? I tap on my own profile to make a new post.

**Jo Wilson: **Just gonna indirectly post a status about somebody indirectly posting a status about hating people that indirectly post statuses. Lol. (0 likes, 0 comments) Seconds ago, via iPhone

What was he even talking about with that status? Me and Alex aren't indirecting each other. I click off Shane's status and scroll back through my newsfeed. Oh, I missed something…

**Alex Karev: **Why are you so hard to forget? don't remind me I'm not over it. **–Feeling stuck. **(14 likes, 0 comments) 20 minutes ago, via iPhone

HE SAID THAT? HE SAID THAT?! HE'S TALKING ABOUT ME, ISN'T HE? HE HAS TO BE TALKING ABOUT ME, RIGHT?! Please be talking about me…. I frantically scroll back up and keep refreshing my newsfeed for something new. And something new, I find. I've been tagged in a post, my newest notification says. I tap on the post I was "tagged" in, and my eyes nearly bug out of my head. OH MY GOD, REALLY? OH MY GOD, I'M GONNA CRY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY TEARS! THIS MEANS SOMETHING, DOESN'T IT? IT MEANS SOMETHING! OH MY GOD…

**Alex Karev: **So WCM goes to **Jo Wilson**. She drives me nuts, she's the biggest pain in my ass ever, but She needs no explanation. Even if we aren't together, she knows where she stands in my life. She's my beautiful, my woman crush EVERY DAY. *heart emoticons* (62 likes, 17 comments) 11 minutes ago, via iPhone.

I'VE NEVER BEEN HAPPIER TO BE SOMEBODY'S PAIN IN THE ASS IN MY LIFE! _okay, chill out. chill out kid. Chill out. no big deal… calm down. Read the comments._

**Meredith G: **You shithead you said I could be your WCM!

**Alex K: **lol sorry but

**Meredith G: **This is better than me being it tho :) this is the way it should be

**Cristina Y: **I knew it lol the hairball is addicting

**Jackson A: **d'aaawwww

**April K: **You really had to call her a pain in the ass though?

**Alex K: **she is a pain in my ass but ilh

**Meredith G: **does this mean u guys are back tgether?

**Alex K: **no it just means that she was the prettiest girl that liked my status

**Cristina Y: **That's exactly the answer I was expecting you to give, you evil spawn

**Jackson A: **don't worry cris he won't b single for long

**April K: **just get back together already. Frankly, we're all tired of u two givin each other sad looks across the cafeteria, sub-statusing each other on fb and listening to u two get jealous. Get back together

**Alex K: **butt out kipner

**April K: **im gonna pretend that u didn't just spell it like that ok?

**Jo W: **Thank you. This is really sweet :,)

_I don't even care that he said this doesn't mean we're back together. I don't care if we're not. The fact is that he doesn't HATE me. He doesn't hate me and I can sleep easily tonight. And I have just a little bit more hope…_


	56. Overheard

**Mon, Nov 15, 2013**

**9:31 p.m.**

**Alex: **What do u want to talk about?

**9:34 p.m.**

**Me: **took you long enough to message me back :/

**Alex: **I don't have to reply back to u quickly anymore

**Me: **what do you mean by that?

**Alex: **I mean we aren't 2gether so it doesn't matter when I talk to u or when I dont

**Me: **yeah ok. it's just common courtesy that you don't make somebody wait three hours for a message back, even if you don't like that person. but i forgot that you lack courtesy sometimes.

**Alex: **what about the fact that u didn't even answer my txts? I txted u at like 7 and u didn't even reply back. Whatever im done replying to u. your being a bitch

**Me: **first of all, i'm grounded so i can't even receive text messages on my phone, asshole. second of all, if i message you on fb, there's obviously a reason why i'm NOT texting you. if you weren't so narrowminded and thickheaded all the time, you'd probably figure that out.

**Alex: **wats even the point of u messaging me? did u just message me to irritate me or did u feel the need to take ur whole desperation thing 2 another level? Why cant u deal with being broken up with?

**Me: **i wanted to apologize for the way i acted at lunch earlier today, but screw that now. i'm not sorry for the way i acted. and i'm desperate? ok, i'd rather be desperate than a giant jerk. you act like i'm oh so hung up on you when i really don't care lol. but whatever floats your boat dude. i just don't appreciate the way you're treating me, that's all.

**Alex: **stfu you don't know what ur talking about. and yeah I do deserve an apology for lunch bc you acted like a total little ass kid. Im not treating u any kind of way ur just too far up my ass to notice anything else that doesn't include me treating u like a prissy little kid

**Me: **lmfao okay alex. you don't deserve an apology from me because you ARE treating me like shit. we just broke up and you're already gonna bounce off to another hoe? lol okay shows that you never really did give a crap about me in the first place. and i'm sorry but i'm NOT sorry for lunch. you and your lil girlfriend will get over it.

**Alex: **first off Olivia isn't my girl idk how many times I have to tell u and everybody else that. plus, u don't get to make me feel bad 4 movin on. Just bc u can't move on doesn't mean that I shouldnt. This is the whole reason Y I don't want u no more. ur selfish

**Me: **HAHAHAHAHA OMG. You think that I'm having trouble moving on? LMFAO. I don't have any problem moving on from you. oh & btw, how's the whole jealousy thing working out for you? lol yeah i heard that you got pissed because i got asked out. hows that feel?

**Alex: **jo idc about u anymore how many times do I hav to say that? ur seriously making me laugh right now at how desperate u are. look at urself. U keep attacking any girl that I try to talk to, ur making it seem like i need u when i really don't & ur being such a bitch. Ur age is showing

**Me: **whatever. you weren't saying how much you "don't care" about me when you were making statuses about me an hour ago, now were you? i must be pretty heavy on your mind for you to make statuses about me AND for you to make me your wcm. but i'm irrelevant to you? k.

**Alex: **never said i didn't miss u. im just glad ur out of my life bc i cant deal with the immaturity. Doesn't mean that I don't miss u. don't flatter urself. U were just the only pretty girl that liked my status

**Me: **okay, if you say so. whatever, i'm so done with this. i'm gonna go talk to ryan now, so bye. :)

**Alex: **and im going out with olivia. see u later.

**Alex: **it doesn't suprise me that ur talkin 2 another guy already lmao u did that when we were 2gether. Ur just easy like that

**Me: **I'm easy? :,D :,D you're so funny alex. really, you're hilarious.

**Me: **was i easy when you were trying to get in my pants last week? didn't think so.

**Alex: **that's not what I meant but watever. Olivias waiting for me so bye

**Me: **screw you.

**Alex: **u already did?

I exit out of my Facebook app and toss my phone across my bed. He irritates me so damn bad. How could he really say those things to me? He really is a jackass. Everybody was so right about him. He's literally the biggest asshole I've ever met in my life. He called me easy, too. I swear I can't stand him. Everything I said to him, I meant. I meant it when I called him an asshole. I meant it when I called him a jerk. I meant everything I said. I really can't stand him. He makes me so freaking angry, I could hop through my phone and strangle him. The only thing I lied to him about was when I said I was going to go talk to Ryan. I'm not actually trying to move on from him…it just seemed like the right thing to say. It seemed like the best thing to do, to make him angry back.

_Stop kidding yourself, Jo. You know damn well you love that man… even if he makes you mad, you're crazy about him. It blatantly shows. You were trying to piss him off by telling him you're talking to other guys, and you're insanely jealous of the fact that he's with another girl right now. Stop kidding yourself. You love him, and you know you do._

I sigh and roll over on my side to go to sleep for the night. I'm just not really looking forward to seeing him in school tomorrow after our argument. I really thought that we were going to be on better terms after he posted that status about me and stuff. I really thought we were going to be civil. But, I guess the emotions are still raw at the moment. Whatever.

I close my eyes and attempt to fall asleep.

* * *

Shane knocks on the bathroom door. "Jo, come on…we're gonna be late. It's 7:30."

I roll my eyes at what he just said. I'm perfectly aware that it's 7:30, and I know that we're pushing it. I'll have us at school before the late bell rings. I've just been really busy this morning. I lean forward, closer into the mirror so I can see better. I pull my left eyelid down and brush on my mascara. I really didn't feel like dressing up for school today, but I felt like I had to. First of all, I haven't dressed up in a really long time. I know people are getting tired of seeing my lazy ass in sweatpants and yoga pants for one thing. Second of all, I kind of wanted to give Alex a reason to notice me today…and I can't do that in sweatpants or yoga pants. Third of all, I don't want to make all of the boys that asked me out or seemed interested in me yesterday, think that they made a mistake by asking out an irritable, unladylike girl. And fourth of all, I can't let Olivia look better than me. I just can't. I twist the cap back on to my mascara tube and stare at myself to see if I missed anything. _No, you look cute. You're fine._

I shut the bathroom light off and step out of it. Shane's standing in the hallway with his bookbag on his back and my purse in his hand. "…Special occasion? You look…nice." He hands me my purse and looks at me from head to toe like he's judging me.

"Be honest…do I look okay?" I put my purse down on the stand in the hallway and pull on a grey jacket. "Minus the jacket, of course. Do I look okay?"

"Yeah, you look fine." He grabs my car keys off the key rack and hands them to me. "A little skimpy, but… fine, none the less. I mean, I'm guessing that's the look you're going for, isn't it?"

"What, skimpy?" I shake my hair to make sure it falls right. "I prefer the term 'head-turning' or 'neck-breaking', but yeah…that's the look I'm going for."

"You're gonna get dress-coded." He opens the front door and steps aside so I can walk out.

"No I'm not…it's not that risqué. My stomach's showing…big whoop. The cheerleaders walk around with their asses hanging out every single Friday. And it's not like my stomach's all the way out, either. It's just showing a little bit."

"Whatever. If you get dress-coded, I have a t-shirt in my locker. Just grab it."

"I'm not gonna get dress-coded. It's not that bad." I start my car and turn the heat on. "You think it'll get Alex's attention, though? In all seriousness…do you think he'll notice me?"

"Yeah." He nods real fast. "Him and a whole bunch of other people."

"As long as he notices me, I don't care who else does." I shrug my shoulders, back out of the driveway and speed along on my way to school.

**x x x **

"How bad is my outfit? Be honest with me. I'm so tempted to just go and change. Should I?" As soon as I get to my first period class, I put my geography book and binder down on the desk I usually sit at and stand in front of Steph, Heather and Leah. Nobody's said anything to me about it and I went through the metal detectors this morning. I didn't get dress-coded like Shane said I would, but I'm still just a little bit cautious. I adjust it and step back so they can get the full view of it. "And you guys can be honest. If I look like a skank, please tell me."

"Jo…you look fine." Steph takes one quick glance at my outfit and just brushes it off. "You're the only person I know that can wear a half-shirt and make it look completely classy. You look great."

"Really? The cleavage isn't too much, either? Like…the stomach and the cleavage together. It's okay?" I pull my shirt down a little bit. My shirt is long sleeved. It's bright, lime green with long sleeves and a V-neck. It's not a half-shirt, it's just a crop top, sort of. I'm wearing my best bra, so I have a ton of cleavage and I changed my belly ring last night to something more compact so it wouldn't dangle and stuff too much. It's just a solid rod with a diamond at the bottom. My jeans are admittedly pretty tight, too. They're really, really, really dark blue with brown stitching on the pockets. It's chilly outside today and I'm already wearing a crop top, so I made sure that my jeans didn't have rips in them. My sandals are brown with silver buckles and the belt I have around my waist to hold my pants up is the same color as my sandals. I don't have the best fashion sense in the world, so I really tried hard to make sure my outfit was put together.

"You look good." Leah reaches out and pulls a loose string off my shirt. "You're sexy, but classy at the same time. Stop worrying about it. You look really good." After she gets rid of the string she just pulled off me, she touches my hair and shakes it. "Yeah, you look gorgeous."

"Thanks, Leah. I was going for that whole…" I sit down in my seat. "I want Alex to break his neck to look at me, you know? I never had to dress like this when I already had him…I don't have him anymore and I'm trying to like… show him what he's missing. Get it?"

"Well you're doing a pretty good job. I know if I were him, I'd be SICK if I saw you." Steph winks at me.

"If I were him, I wouldn't have broken up with you in the first place." Heather leans forward to look at me. "But I'm glad he did." She awkwardly reaches over and holds my hand. "When are you letting me take you out to dinner, babe? I'm free tonight after seven."

"…Not tonight. I'm busy tonight…but I'm free tomorrow night if you are." I playfully wink at her and laugh. "But seriously, if you're paying…let's go."

"You just gotta let me know where you want me to take you." She squeezes my hand tighter and pulls me closer to her.

"Woooah!" I squeal at the sudden movement.

"Are me and Steph invited to the wedding? You know…when it's legal for you two to marry each other?" Leah cracks a small joke.

"Totally." I play along. "You guys can be like…our bridesmaids or something. But one of you has to be the best man…or best woman, whatever."

"Which one of you is the guy in the relationship?" Steph wonders aloud. "Just for reference."

"Um… I don't think we decided that." I look over at Heather. "Are you the man or am I? Which one of us wears the pants?"

"I'll be the guy." She locks her fingers inside mine and holds my hand. Her thumb starts stroking my palm. "Just because I'm totally into the idea of being of top, you screaming my name…that sort of thing."

"Oh yeah, totally." I nod my head and try HARD to keep a straight face. The idea of being with a girl sort of repulses me. Not that I have anything against true lesbians, because I don't. I just can't imagine myself being with a lady. But I must admit that it's a little bit fun to play around with Heather. "I'm totally into just lying there… with my legs in the air. Yanno… that sounds nice."

"I can for sure make that happen." She leans towards me and puts her head on my shoulder but off to the side a little, so it's kind of like she's laying on my chest. "You're really not free tonight? If you skip whatever you have to do, I'll totally make it worth your while, babe."

I close my eyes and laugh…HARD. "Babe, what would Aaron say?"

"I told you that he's just gonna have to deal with sharing me."

"Jo, why are you encouraging her?" Steph holds her hand out like she's waiting for me to give her a high-five or something like that. "You know she's totally serious when it comes to this stuff, don't you?" With my free hand that Heather isn't holding, I cover my face and keep giggling. "Alright…laugh all you want. But when she ties you to her bed and decides that she wants to keep you hostage, don't say me and Leah didn't warn you."

"Heather, you know this is all just a joke, don't you?" I take my hand away from my face and look down at her. "I'm really not gay. You know I'm just joking, right?"

"Yes, Jo. I know you're joking. I'm joking too." She lets go of my hand and sits up straight. "But you know, if you change your mind… decide that Alex really isn't for you? You know where I live. And I've been told by guys that I'm good with my mouth, so I could probably show you a thing or two if you show up at my doorstep." She winks at me. "Cause you really are hot."

"…I probably won't change my mind about that. But in the event that I do turn gay…. I'll definitely think about you." I nod my head and look straight.

"Just tell me one thing." She asks. I turn my head and look at her and raise my eyebrow. "What does Alex have that I can't give to you? Just for future reference. When we date, I want to make sure I treat you ten times better than he did. So just tell me."

"….A penis." I shrug my shoulders in all seriousness but Steph and Leah start laughing so hard that they're probably pissing themselves. "What? She asked me what Alex has that she can't give to me, and it's the truth." I lick my lips and try to wipe a smile off my face. "He gives me…." I purse my lips trying to think of the most PG way to put this. "Yeah. And it's really, really, really, really, really, reallllllly good…. and you can't give me that…sorry Heather."

"See, that won't work for me." Heather busts out in laughter too. "I have that. I get that at least twice a week. Just got it last night, actually. And if…" She looks away from me and mumbles. "If Alex puts it down anything like Aaron puts it down…. I'm gonna have to go ahead and let you stay with him."

I cover my mouth and laugh so hard that tears start coming out of my eyes. "….Yeah, that's what I thought." I tap my fingers along the desk. "That's probably what I'll miss the most, you know? If me and Alex don't get back together, I mean. Over time, I'll stop missing him probably. But I'll always miss that. Always. I'm missing it right now and I've only had it like twice…." I look at the three of them. "I'm such a slut."

"No you're not. Because in all truthfulness, I'd probably miss that about Shane, too." I wince when Leah says that. Just because…ew. I can't even imagine Shane being good in bed at this point. Just ew. "Shane does this thing, where he puts my legs—"

"NO, NO, NO. NO, LEAH. NO." I put my hands over my ears. "LA LA LA LA, I'M NOT LISTENING!" I don't want to hear any details about it. Last week, I probably would've been super cool to sit here and listen to Leah when she needs to gush about how good her sex life is, but ever since I had that dream, I just can't stand the thought of Shane and sex in the same sentence.

"Least you guys have sex lives…" Steph blows out a huff of hair from her mouth and sighs. "Must be nice, eh?"

"If it makes you feel better, I currently don't have one." I cross my arms across my chest and look down. "I haven't had sex in a little while, and if I don't get my boyfriend back, I won't be having sex again until college. I don't want anybody else but him."

"You and Alex totally can't live without each other. You'll be back together in no time." Leah assures me.

"We argued so bad on Facebook last night. I really think I lost him for good this time." I sigh. "He called me a bitch. And I called him an asshole, a jerk… I think I might've slipped 'faggot' in there somewhere, I don't know."

"But didn't he make you his Woman Crush Monday thing?" Heather asks.

"Yeah, but he said it was only because I was the prettiest girl that liked his status. And he admitted that he misses me but he also said that he's glad that we're over. Because apparently I'm selfish." I really need to talk. And despite the fact that I'd much rather be talking to April about this, I'll settle for Heather, Leah and Steph until I can talk to April at lunch. "I guess I have been real selfish lately, but I have reason to. I just wanted him to be mine, that's all. He was out drinking with Jackson and their friends and stuff and I really wanted him to come spend time with me instead… so I got mad at him. But it was only because I needed him. I wanted to talk to him about some stuff."

"He has to have a life too though, Jo." Leah puts her hand on my back. "I feel that way too sometimes, though. Like I just want Shane to myself but he has friends that he likes to spend time with too."

"I mean yeah, I know that now. But at the time, I was just drunk and needy." I just sigh again. "I need to get my baby back, because I'm miserable as hell without him."

* * *

"You spend all of your time in the media center, Ape. You should just live here." Slouching while I walk, I follow her up the steps that lead to the media center. I'm ditching gym today to be with her. I just don't feel like undressing for gym. I spent way too much time this morning trying to doll myself up just to ruin it with gym class.

"Just hush up. You have to be quiet while you're in here. I already told Mr. B that I'm bringing a guest to senior seminar today and he doesn't care…you just have to shut up and act like you're not even there. I don't want anybody to notice that you're here." She opens up the door and holds it for me. "I'm serious, Jo. You have to be quiet and nearly invisible for this to work. Do you understand me?"

"For what to work?" I step inside the library and just look at her.

"You'll see." She grabs ahold of my arm and pulls me inside. "Me and you are gonna sit in the back, by the books where nobody will see us." With her hand rested in the middle of my back, she starts pushing me and leading me to the bookcases. "Cute shirt, by the way." She whispers and guides me to a spot in the back of the bookcases. "Sit down and just listen."

I sit down on the floor and lay my head back against the shelves. "What am I here for, Ape? Because I really want to talk to you about something and if I can't—"

"Shh!" She puts her hand over my mouth. "They'll hear you. Just listen…" She takes her hand away. "If you ever want to get inside of the mind of a man, this is where to do it. When the boys have their all-male senior seminar days. I can't tell you how much I've found out from doing this. And I'm giving away my secrets, so you better respect it. Don't tell anybody about this."

"Of course I won't tell, but seriously… what the heck—"

"Shh!" She puts her hand over my mouth once again. "Listen…" I roll my eyes and just listen like she told me to. I don't quite recognize some of the voices that I'm listening to, but it seems important to April that I listen, so I just listen.

"Did you know that Byrnes was collecting that worksheet we did last night?"

"He is?"

"Yeah."

"Fuck, I didn't do it. Lemme copy yours right quick…"

Instead of really paying attention to what's being said, I start scanning through the books on the bookshelf that's sitting right in front of me and April. _The Notebook, The Princess Bride, The Vow, Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, Breaking Dawn, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Speak, Bud Not Buddy, Grapes of Wrath, Lord of the Flies, The Metamorphosis, A Midsummer Night's Dream…_

"Did you see little Wilson today? Wooooo… that girl is NOT a freshman…I'm telling you, she's not."

My eyebrow wrinkles at that. I look over at April and she just motions for me to be quiet about it.

"I swear she's gotten hotter since she started hanging out with Kepner."

April restrains herself from laughing. I just shake my head at her. She seriously just does this? She seriously just sits here and eavesdrops on the boys?

"She really has. Call me crazy, but I always thought that Kepner was kinda hot. It's something about redheads…"

"Chill." Out of nowhere, another voice cuts the two boys that were just talking about me and April off.

_Jackson. That's Jackson's voice._

"My bad, Jax." One of the boys apologizes. "I thought you two were still broken up, though?"

"We are. Doesn't mean you can just talk about 'er in front of me, though. That's still my girl." Jackson defends April, and my heart just melts into a puddle.

"Awww…" I whisper to April. She laughs at me and puts her finger to her lips. "You're his girl, though." I mouth to her. She rolls her eyes up to the sky and flips her hair like she knows she's all that. I playfully jab her in her arm.

"Is Kepner really as ditzy as she seems, though? Her ditzy-ness is kinda hot… is that how she really is, Avery?"

"Yeah. And it's really hot." I can tell by the tone of Jackson's voice that he's annoyed by the fact that these boys think April's hot. _Awww…oh my gosh. They're so cute together._

"How come you didn't show me this sooner?" I ask April in a loud whisper. "This is amazing." Even though I don't think Alex is in this class, I'm still enjoying getting inside the mind of boys. His is fun.

"I know, isn't it?" She puts her finger over her lips again. "But shh…"

"She seems like she'd be wild in bed, too. Just saying…"

I hear Jackson laugh. "While that's nobody's business, I can neither confirm nor deny these…allegations."

I look over and see April blushing. Jackson's such a gentleman for that, I think. It was really sweet how he just… brushed the subject off.

Another voice that I don't recognize comes into the conversation. "Hey Jax, April's cool with Lil Wilson, isn't she? Text April and see if she'll gimme her number. I wanna scoop her up before anybody else does, you know? She probably won't be single for long."

"April's not gonna give you Jo's number. Why don't you ask Jo yourself at lunch? She's cool… but she won't hesitate to turn you down." Jackson says.

A huge smile spreads across my face. I turn to April and tune my nose up. "He sounds ugly…ick. No chance for him." I whisper. April shakes her head atme.

"Her phone's off anyway, so don't bother." Somebody else mumbles. _ALEX?! HE'S IN HERE?!_

I turn to April again, my eyes wide as hell. She nods at me and makes a heart with her hands. I bite my lip and continue smiling so hard. I love just hearing his voice.

"What's she even like, Karev? Is she worth it? Should I waste my time getting to know the girl or is it pointless?" The guy that's interested in me asks.

"I wouldn't waste my time with her. Complete, total, utter bitch. She's totally not even worth it." My jaw drops when Alex says that. "Jo's not worth anybody's time. She's such a priss." I think I'm gonna cry, but I'm not sure.

I close my mouth and my bottom lip slides out from underneath my top lip. My jaw starts trembling. _He hates me. I fucked up so bad…he hates me. _I look down at the carpeting that me and April are sitting on and sigh. April touches my shoulder blade. I wanna get outta here now. I don't want to stay here.

"Really, she's that bad?" The guy that was interested in me sounds disappointed. "What about the sex? Was that any good? Is she worth fucking?"

"Nope." I bite my lip and bang my head back against the shelves again. _Stupid, stupid, stupid. Stupid. He hates me. _"I mean, at least I don't think so." He just keeps talking. "I only banged her once. It wasn't even all that. It was kinda boring. She just lays there and she doesn't even say anything. It was boring. Plus, she's loose…so there's that too."

I stand up from the spot that me and April are sitting at so I can leave. "I'll see you later…" I whisper to her.

"I'm sorry." She whispers back to me. "Come here…sit back down." She rubs the spot next to her and holds her arms out to me like she wants to give me a hug. Even though I want to leave really bad, I need a hug more than I want to leave. So I sit back down and collapse into April's arms. "Sorry for bringing you here…. this really wasn't a good idea." I shake my head and just cry. _It wasn't a good idea at all. _"As soon as the bell rings…we can get outta here. Sorry, Jo." I nod. "Do you want me to ask Jackson to tell Alex that you heard him?" I shake my head. "Do you want to leave…like right now?" I nod my head. "Okay, come on."

When she lets me go, I stand back up and don't even bother wiping my face. I feel so silly right now. I wore all this makeup, I put mousse in my hair to make it curlier, I dressed like a fashion model…just for him to say those things about me? I feel like an idiot. I'm such a little kid. I have no business with him, anyway. He said he wouldn't even waste his time on me. He basically said I'm a slut. He never enjoyed having sex with me. He hates me… and I just want to die, honestly. I feel like an idiot. I grab my purse off the floor and start walking towards the door to leave.

"Wait, Jo… we have to go out the back way so they don't see us." April calls to me, but I keep walking. I don't even care at this point. He humiliated me. I mean, there aren't that many boys in here. There's only six, including Jackson and Alex…but that's not the point. He humiliated me. I've never been so embarrassed in my life.

I walk straight past the group of boys while they're all sitting at the computers working on whatever they're working on. They all stop talking immediately when they see me. I know they can probably see that I'm crying, but I don't care. I run my hand through my hair and shake it, walking with attitude right by Jackson and right to the main entrance/exit. April walks right behind me, stopping at Jackson and Alex for a second. "Nice job, Ace." I hear her snap at Alex just as I leave out the door. She's not far behind me.

"Shit, Jo…." I hear the screeching of a chair being scooted out, but I don't stick around to see who's calling after me.

Once I'm in the hallway, I disappear into the closest bathroom and hole myself up in the handicap stall. I think I'm just gonna give up. He clearly hates me. He clearly doesn't have any feelings for me. The thing that hurts the most is the fact that I'm sorry. I'm so sorry for being selfish and I really wanted him back. But he really feels that way about me? He really thinks I'm a bitch? He really wouldn't have wasted his time on me? He really never enjoyed sleeping with me? I'm such an idiot for ever thinking that he felt differently about me. I knew about his past before I got involved with him. I knew… but I thought that I could change him. Stupid me. People don't really change.

"Jo? You in here?" April's voice fills the silent bathroom.

"Yep." I mumble through tears and unlock the stall.

"Alex wants to talk to you. I told him to get lost, but he really wants to talk to you. He's outside waiting for you at the water fountain."

"Tell him I said to go to hell." I walk out of the stall and look at myself in the mirror to fix my makeup, even though I'm still bawling pretty hard.

"He said he's sorry…"

"Tell him to stick his apology up his butt." I fix my mascara that's running down my cheeks.

"Okay." She walks further into the restroom with me. "….I'm sorry too, by the way. It really wasn't a good idea to bring you in there. I thought it was at the time, but it wasn't. My mistake. You shouldn't have had to hear any of that… it's my fault." She rips some paper towels out of the dispenser and starts wiping my cheeks off for me. "Stop crying… you're ruining your makeup. And you're too pretty to cry."

"He hates me, Ape. I thought I could deal with him being mad at me and all… but how do I deal with him hating me? I didn't prepare myself for that…." I tilt my head back and let her help me out with my makeup running.

"He doesn't hate you, Jo… he's just confused. He's a boy…"

"No, he meant everything he just said about me. He meant everything…"

"No, Jo. I didn't mean any of that." He's standing inside the bathroom, right at the entrance. "Just let me explain what happened in there…"

I completely ditch April and hurry back inside the stall. I lock it and stand at the door. "…Go away. Get out of here. It's the ladies' room…"

"I don't care whose bathroom it is… just let me explain. Just listen to me… Jo, listen to me."

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE! I don't want to listen to you… I want you to leave me alone."

"…Apes, can you give us a minute? Alone?" I hear him whisper to April.

"She said to leave her alone, Alex…so leave her alone." April doesn't sound like she's going to stand down.

"Just stand outside for a minute, April! Damn. I just need to talk to her…"

"…Whatever." April says, and I listen to her footsteps as she leaves.

I hear his footsteps near the door of the stall I'm locked inside. I step back so he can't see me through the little crack that's beside the door. I look down at the floor and see his feet. "Jo, can you open the door? I want to talk to you…"

"Leave me alone, okay? Don't you think you've already done enough to me for one day? I don't want to hear anything you have to say." I fold my arms across my chest and throw my head up to the ceiling. I'm not crying anymore but I'm still just so hurt. "Alex, just get out. Get out of here."

"Open the door…"

"NO!"

"Alright." I watch as his feet disappear from the crack underneath the stall. I see his legs come underneath the stall and I roll my eyes. Why won't he just leave me alone? By now, I know that he's not gonna do anything but climb underneath to get to me. So I walk into the corner of the stall and turn my back towards him. "…So you're not gonna look at me now? When all I want to do is talk to you, you're not gonna look at me?" I shake my head at him. "Fine, you don't have to look at me. But… just listen to me, okay?" I rest my forehead against the wall and sigh.

"Why won't you just leave me alone?" I whisper so low that he probably can't even hear me…oh well.

"I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry. I didn't mean for you to hear that… you shouldn't have had to hear that, actually. But I really didn't mean any of that…okay? I didn't mean any of that. I just…" He sighs. "I got jealous. I'm ashamed of it, but I got jealous…when I heard Luke say that he wanted to text you and when he said that you're hot. I got really jealous. And I wanted to keep him away from you. I wanted him to… not be interested in you anymore. I wanted him to lose interest in you, so I just thought that… maybe if I made you sound horrible to him, he would back off. I didn't want him to try to get with you because… I dunno, I guess I still might love you or something. And I still think you're mine. And I don't like when people mess with things that are mine, so I just lost it for a second. I'm sorry you had to hear that. And you don't have to believe me, either. But I really am sorry and I really didn't mean any of that. I didn't mean that. You're not a bitch and… I'd waste all the time in the world on you, because I just miss spending time WITH you. And I don't think that you're easy or nasty or whatever. And the sex… the sex was great. But you already know that." I hear him take a step towards me. "You… you freaked out on me and cried after the sex once, but even that was amazing. I love you, okay? I swear I do. And I'm sorry that you heard that…sorry that I said it, too. I was just trying to make you sound unattractive."

"…Are you done? Are you finished?" I wipe my face free of a couple tears that fell.

"Yeah… I'm done."

"Then leave."

"Dammit, Jo… come on. I'm dying here! Will you just look at me?!"

I turn around quickly and snap at him. "WHY?!" He's crying. His eyes are all red and stuff and he's crying. "I don't care that you're sorry! I don't care anymore, Alex… I don't CARE."

"What else do you want from me?! I told you I'm sorry!"

I bawl my hands up into fists, lunge forward at him and push him…hard into the wall. "God, I hate you right now! I swear I hate you! I swear I could kill you!" I grab a handful of my hair and pull it. "…Just hold me, Alex. Hold me…" And just like I said, he reaches out and wraps his arms around me. He squeezes me so close against his body that it hurts…and I love it. "I love you… and I want you so bad that it hurts. It hurts… I want it to stop hurting so bad…"

"I love you too…" He lifts me up off my feet just a little, and I take this opportunity to wrap my legs around him. He pulls me up further so that my legs are around his waist and he just keeps holding me. "And I'm sorry, okay? I'm sorry for… for letting you go."

"…I want you. You said I need to figure out what I want, and I want YOU. I want you. I don't want anybody else…just you." I squeeze my arms around his neck tighter. His arms are underneath my legs so that I don't fall and his hands are lightly caressing the bare skin exposed on my back. "You said you'd stay… you promised me that you wouldn't give up on me…"

"I'm not giving up. I'm not… I'm here."

"You gave up on me though… you left me…"

"I know, and I'm sorry. I won't do it again." He squeezes me. "You're everything to me, you know that? I can't eat, can't sleep… it's that type of shit. Can't eat, can't breathe, can't sleep without you. You're everything to me, girl…"

"I missed you so much, baby…" Like I've been longing to do, I curl my fingers through his hair. "I really missed you…" You know what?

_I think I have my baby back._


	57. Feeling

**Tues, Nov 16, 2013**

**3:20 p.m.**

**Text Message**

**Shane: **hey babe it's me. i still can't text on my phone so this is shane's phone. but anyway what did you want me to text you about? you said to text you when we left school today didn't you?

**3:25 p.m.**

**Alex: **O sorry I 4got ur phone was off or whatever. but yea I wanted 2 see if ur allowed 2 come over later so we can talk everything out that we didn't get 2 talk about in school

**Shane: **i'm still grounded :/ so no, i probably won't be able to come over. but idk you might be able to come over for a couple minutes so we can talk later.

**Alex: **ok what time?

**Shane: **idek. maybe around seven thirty?

**Alex: **ok so whats up?

**Shane: **nothing but i cant talk right now baby. im super busy and im going somewhere with my family. sorry.

**Alex: **its cool. I'll come see you around 7:30 love u

**Shane: **love you too

* * *

"Hey! Sorry…sorry for… just popping in like this." I open the door up just enough to poke my face inside. I know how bad it is for me to just show up without any explanation, but I really just needed to talk to her. I promised mom I wouldn't take longer than twenty or so minutes so I'm not here for long. I just really needed to tell her about this and she said herself that if I ever needed her for something, I could just float in. The receptionist at the front entrance told me that I just caught her because she was just about to leave for the night. "I wanna tell you something." Because I'm still not sure if I can come in, I keep myself just at the door.

"Jo! Come on in…I'm just packing up. What do you need, honey?" She shoves a little black lunchbox inside a bigger purse and zips it up. "I was gonna ask you tomorrow why your mom cancelled your session with me today. I was worried that maybe you weren't feeling well. I was gonna call your mother later to see if you were okay. Did you just come to say hi?"

"No…it wasn't that." I shut the door behind me and walk across the room to get to her. "Um… she cancelled because I had some stuff to do after school today. I kinda made her bring me down here for a couple minutes just so I could tell you about it." I put my hands down on the table and pull myself up so I can sit on it. "So first of all… I got back together with Alex." I swing my feet. "It's not like it used to be, of course. But we're working it out. I apologized to him for being so needy and stuff."

"No way!" She pulls a coat on over her arms and adjusts the hood of it. "So does this mean that you might actually let me meet the kid now, or is that still crossing the line? I was beginning to think that I'd never meet him if you two never made up."

She makes me laugh at that. "Yes… you can meet Alex now. Maybe I'll let him come sit in on a session with us… if that's okay with you."

"I told you when you first started seeing me that anybody you feel necessary can sit in on your sessions, as long as it's no more than one person at a time." She offers me a piece of gum and I take it politely from her.

"Yeah." I stuff the gum in my mouth and start chewing on it. "And…" A pleasant smile spreads across my lips. "I cancelled today, because my mom wanted to take me out to dinner to celebrate today."

"Celebrate what?"

"….I got adopted today." As soon as I say it, her jaw drops and she gasps. "I know, I know!" She bolts from behind her desk and attacks me with a hug. I put my arms around her and hug her back, laughing and genuinely smiling. "It's… It's not official yet, because they're still waiting for these papers to come in the mail from the courthouse to make it all legal and stuff. But we went down to the thing afterschool today and mom signed some papers that said that she'll be my legal mother when everything gets all set out."

"That's GREAT, Jo. Really." She squeezes me tighter with the hug and pulls away finally. "That's amazing. I could cry for you right now, that's how awesome it is."

"…I know. I started crying." I sheepishly admit to her. "It took like two seconds to go in, sign the papers and come out. But I was crying so hard. It's just nuts how somebody actually…wants me, you know? And I'm gonna get a mother. I've always had one, so don't get me wrong. But it's real now…you know? I have a MOM, Mrs. Who. I never thought I'd get one… but I have one now. And I just had to tell you about it."

"I'm glad you did tell me about it, hon. I'm glad you came to tell me about it." Like she always does when she's finished hugging me, she runs her fingers through my ponytail and looks me in my eyes. "So what's going on with it? You said they're waiting for these papers to come in so it's official?"

"Yeah…." I flip my hair so it's out of my face. "They're called abandonment papers… something about how they have to like…track them down, then get lawyers for my real parents and get them to sign the papers. They already got them to sign them but they're waiting for them to come back in the mail. I don't know, I don't really know how it works. It's complicated, but the guy said that it should take about a week for everything to be official." I look down at the floor and keep swinging my feet. "So uh… are you going home for the day? Is that why you're packing everything up?"

"Yep. My 5:30 appointment cancelled too so I'm done for the day. I'm headed home to whip up some dinner for me and my husband." She pushes her purse strap up on her shoulder and zips up her coat. "Where'd you go eat at for dinner?"

"The Olive Garden." I carefully step down off the table and stand up. "I had chicken parmesan and two baskets of breadsticks. Plus some salad and garlic bread. I ate a whole lot." I giggle.

"You might as well fill up on food while you're out, eh?" She puts her hand on my back. "Is your mom outside waiting for you, or do you need a ride home?"

"Oh no, she's outside. I told her not to leave because I knew I wasn't gonna be in here for a long time." I crack my knuckles and start walking towards the door. "I just wanted to come in here real quick and tell you…and the girl at the front desk told me that you had a little bit of free time so I just came right up."

"Oh, okay." She locks the door to her office behind the both of us and we start walking through the hallway of the floor we're on. They do a really nice job of disguising the fact that it's a hospital on this floor. It has a really homely feel to it, and it kind of feels like one big daycare. I guess that's because we're on the pediatric floor. Standing close beside her, I follow her through a hallway, past a couple rooms.

"…Do you ever see the kids that live here? Like, the cancer kids and the kids with life-threatening illnesses? Do you counsel them too?" When she stops walking to punch out at the time-clock, I stop walking and wait for her. "I always kinda feel bad when I come here because nothing's wrong with me and these kids are all really sick…"

"You'd be surprised how funny some of them are." She slides her ID badge through the time-clock and I hear it beep. "But yeah. I see them too. I help them deal with their conditions." We start walking again and a bunch of nurses sitting and chatting at the nurses' station stop talking just to say goodbye to her. She waves at them and continues walking with me. "I wish Dr. Robbins wasn't in surgery right now. I'd take you to go visit her if she wasn't. She's always asking about you. She and her wife always ask me how you're doing."

"Oh really?" I walk onto the nearest open elevator and push the number "one" to go down to the first floor. "Well I mean, you can always tell them that I'm doing well. It's nice that they worry about me…that's sweet." The elevator doors close and I back myself into the corner and start picking at the pink nail polish I have on my nails.

"Do you like ice cream, Jo?" She stands beside me as the elevator starts descending.

"…I'm allergic to milk. I like it, but I can't have it much." The elevator doors open back up and the both of us walk out of it. "Why?"

"How about cake? Or pie? Or is anything with milk totally out of the question?" She asks. We walk past the main lobby and out the main doors.

"It's not totally out of the question. I can have like… condensed milk or evaporated milk. The stuff that comes from a can usually doesn't make me break out like the stuff that comes straight from the cartons. I can have milk I just need to take a Benadryl like right after… why?"

"You think your mom will be okay if I take you down to Sweet Things? My treat."

"…I don't know if she'd let me. I'm… I'm supposed to be grounded. I'll ask her, but… she might say no." I lick my lips and bite them, nervously. "…Just wait right here, I'll go ask." I turn away from her and jog over to the place that mom parked the car. I stand right outside the car so she knows that I have something to ask her, rather than her just take me automatically home. She rolls down the window for me. "Mom? Mrs. Who wants to know if I can go out for dessert with her. I know I'm grounded but I told her that I would ask…She's right there waiting for me." I turn around to the direction that I left Mrs. Who in and wave her over. I can tell that mom's waiting for me to shut up so she can get a word in, but if I don't let her talk then she can't say no to me…right? "I don't really have homework tonight and I'll come home and go straight to bed because we already ate dinner…"

"Jo…." Mom says. I can see her eyes looking back behind me. She's not paying attention to me. I look behind her to see what she's looking at and Mrs. Who is standing behind me. She completely ignores me and starts talking to her. "Hi Brenda." Mom waves at Mrs. Who. "I TRIED to take her straight home after dinner, but she insisted that I bring her here to see you." Both mom and Mrs. Who laugh. Mom fixes her hair and looks over at me. I give her my puppy-dog eyes. "Are you sure you don't mind taking her?"

"No, I don't mind taking her for an hour or so. I'm just taking her down to Sweet Things for a little while, if it's fine with you."

"…I guess it's fine." Mom rolls her eyes at me and cracks a smile. I smile at her. "Brenda's she's grounded… so have her home by 6:30-7:00 please."

"I'll have her home by seven." Mrs. Who nods at mom.

"Thank you!" I reach through the window and hug mom to the best of my ability. "I'll see you at seven, mom."

* * *

I'm not sure what I was expecting Mrs. Who's husband to be like, but I know that I wasn't expecting him to look like he actually does. He's really bulky with shaved head, lots of tattoos on his arms and bright brown eyes. His skin is so pale white that the colors of his tattoos are really bright, too. He kind of reminds me of a whiter version of Jackson. Plus, he's actually pretty funny. He has a really cool sense of humor. He and Mrs. Who definitely offset each other. I think she mentioned that his name is Donald, but I've only heard her refer to him as "Don" while I've been around.

"How old did you say you were?" He's working on his third slice of chocolate cake. I sort of feel bad knowing that Mrs. Who brought me here instead of going home and cooking first. I think she said something about how they haven't eaten a proper dinner yet, but here they are, treating me to a dessert shop. "Are you like…thirteen?"

"I'm sixteen." With my fork, I dig into a tiny little corner of my apple pie. "I'm a freshman in high school."

"You look younger than that. You're tall but you're young looking in the face." He chews his mouthful of cake and swallows it. "When Brenda came home and told me about you, she made me think that you were a little girl."

"She is a little girl." Mrs. Who is being simple and plain with vanilla ice cream and rainbow sprinkles. "I told you that she was sweet and you'd love her if you meant her. I told you that she was a little freshman."

"You don't seem like her other clients though. What do you even see her for?" He asks me. I really like him. I like how forward and honest he is.

"Anger…issues." I chuckle. "I'm not… that sweet when I get mad."

"I'm glad she actually let me meet you, kid." He gives me a friendly smile. "All the talking she did about you… I wanted to meet the topic of our dinner discussions."

I playfully look over at Mrs. Who and wrinkle my brow at her. "…What'd she say about me? Good things or bad things?"

"Good things. All good things." He winks at me. "You know, she had to try to convince me to take you in, so it was all good things."

I notice Mrs. Who's face change to something that reads uncomfortable. I don't think that he was supposed to say what he just said. Mrs. Who puts her ice cream spoon down and clears her throat. "Well that didn't happen, so…." She wipes her mouth with a napkin. "And all the good things I've told you about Jo are real."

I'm curious, so… "What didn't happen?" I ask.

Again, Mrs. Who glares at her husband bites her lip like she wants to kill him. "…When you started seeing me….when you were still an orphan in foster care… Much like you, I didn't think that you were going to be adopted. So I had mentioned the idea of taking you in. But it was just an idea, and you've got a family now."

"Oh." I look down at my plate of pie. "...Well, I would've liked that. If… if I couldn't have gotten adopted by the Rosses, I mean. I would've liked that." _How crazy is that? Just a couple months ago, nobody wanted you. Nobody wanted you and nobody cared about you and you were just a poor little foster kid. Now, two people want you. I never knew that Mrs. Who wanted me… I'm really beyond glad that Shane's mom adopted me. Really, I am. I've never felt more apart of somebody's family than I feel when I'm with the Rosses. They're my perfect family. But it's kind of nice to know that if things had fallen through with them, I would've had a backup. I'm glad to know that. And I really hope that even when I turn eighteen that I can keep in touch with Mrs. Who. You know what? I can't really see it…_

_But I think this is what progress FEELS like._

* * *

"I'M GETTING IT, I'M GETTING IT!" I yell to everybody in the house as I run down the stairs to grab the door, seconds after the doorbell just rang. Today's just been an awesone day, and the fact that I'm getting to see him for a couple minutes makes it even better. "DON'T WORRY ABOUT IT, I'LL GET IT!" I repeat myself again because I know that it's Alex at the door and if mom answers it, she'll send him away because I AM still grounded. He's just coming over to talk to me for five minutes. I can keep him here for five minutes before mom decides to come out on the porch and look and see me talking to him and ground me for another week. I leisurely pull my unruly mess of hair up into a high bun and put my hand on the knob of the front door.

Shane sits up from the couch with an evil little look on his face. "Expecting someone there, Jo?" I can tell by the tone of his voice and the look on his face that he's gonna tell on me. And if he tells on me, I'm going to punch him in his throat. Just a few weeks ago when both me and him were grounded for having people over without mom's permission, Leah snuck in the house while mom was asleep and I didn't tell on him. He better not tell on me and I mean it.

"It's Alex and he'll be gone in five minutes. Come on, Shane… don't spoil this for me." I step away from the door for a second just to look at him. "He'll be gone by the time mom gets out the shower. Don't tell on me. Don't be a snitch." He folds his arms and looks at me throughout the corner of his eyes. I roll my eyes and suck my teeth at him. "Seriously Shane. We're… we're family now. You're truly my brother. This is what brothers and sisters do for each other. We cover each other's asses."

"Technically you're not my sister yet. You're not my sister until those papers come in…"

"Shane, don't be an ass."

"…Fine. I'm going upstairs. Make sure you listen out for me because I'll yell down when mom's out the shower." He gets up from the spot on the couch he was sitting on and heads towards the steps. "It's your ass if you get caught, Jo." He cautions me just one more time before he starts climbing up the steps to leave me alone out on the porch with Alex. I grab ahold of the doorknob again and twist it. Five minutes with Alex isn't enough…but I'm grounded. I'll just have to deal with five minutes of my time.

I swing the door open and take a step out onto the porch with him, but I stop…dead in my tracks before I can get all the way onto the porch. Needless to say that it's not Alex, like I was expecting it to be. It's a woman. I scan her body for any indication of who she might actually be. I don't usually answer the door for bill collectors or salespeople or anything like that. I'm usually good with peeking through the peephole and ignoring people I don't know. But of course, I can't do that now. And not to mention, the woman doesn't even look like she works for a company. She's just a normal person, dressed in tight, high-waist blue jeans and a dark grey sweatshirt. Her stringy, dirty blonde hair is resting at her sides in long, luscious lengths with light curls at the ends. Her eyes are the oddest mixture of brown and green and they're pretty much mesmerizing. She has a tiny, dark brown speck near her mouth and a nose that sticks out a little far, but fittingly so for her face.

I don't know this woman at all. I've never seen her a day in my life. But somehow, I feel like I _do _know her. It's a strange feeling…something I can't really explain. The thickness of her full, pink lips and the curvature of her neatly trimmed eyebrows are really familiar to me. The way her nose turns up at the tip just slightly makes me shiver. I take a step back and end up stumbling, catching myself on the doorframe and readjusting my balance. I know it's rude not to greet your guests, but I can't put a sentence together. I feel so… weird. I stumble my way backwards into the house and find the strength in my arms to shut the door…right in her face.

I'm GOING to throw up. It's not like yesterday when mom told me that she was adopting me when I was unsure if I was gonna puke or not. No, at this point, I know for sure that I'm GOING to puke. I turn towards the downstairs bathroom and start to run, but my body isn't actually in sync with my actions and I end up losing my footing and falling down on my knees. I catch myself with my hands so I don't hurt myself too bad, but I stand back up and keep making a beeline to the bathroom. Purely out of coincidence, mom just so happens to be coming down the steps while I'm running.

"Jo? Who was at the door?" She asks me. Honestly? I don't know. I don't know who she is, I don't know what she wants and I don't know why she's here. I don't know if she's lost, if she's looking for somebody, if she's in the right place. I just don't know. I vigorously shake my head at mom and push the bathroom door open. I fling up the toilet seat quickly and heave everything I just ate at the restaurant into the water below. "Jo… what's the matter, honey? Are you not feeling well?" Mom weasels her way into the bathroom with me and puts her hand in the middle of my back. "Was it something that you ate?" Interrupting the soft silence in the bathroom is the nagging doorbell, once again. She gives me a soft pat on my back before she moves. "I'm gonna go grab the door…I'll be right back." She leaves out of the bathroom and I'm alone again.

I put my hand against the cool porcelain of the toilet seat and keep my mouth open. I don't know that woman. I've never seen her before, ever. But she looks so…familiar. The width of her forehead, the way her hair clustered and bunched at her temple before flowing out into long, dark blonde locks. The precise color of her eyes and the tiny little freckle residing next to the corner of her full, pink lips. The way her nose turned up at the end so I could see the underside of it, and the way the bridge of her nose went all the way up until it spiraled out into thin, perfect eyebrows. I don't know her at all… but my heart feels like either I should or I do. I spit into the toilet and flush my vomit away. I saunter over to the sink, fill my hands up with cool water and put the water on my face.

I know that if I do what I want to do, I'm just going to make myself sick. But somewhere inside of me is burning, growing, budding curiosity. So I step outside of the bathroom and softly pad my way back to the door again. I just want to know if she's still out there…that's all. I merely tiptoe to the front, wide window that's right next to the front door and discreetly pull back the curtains. With my index finger, I pull the blinds down so I can see onto the porch. I just look out there.

Mom and the woman seem to be in deep conversation about something. The woman is softly smiling, like she's nervous and mom's expression is cold but soft at the same time. The woman's teeth are perfectly aligned and straight, but the color of them is a little bit off. The more I look at her, the more I notice about her. She has tired, purplish bags underneath of her eyes and lines on her forehead like she's lived far too much life for anybody to understand. Even though the laugh lines and the worry lines in her face indicate that she must be pretty old, her face still retains some childlike youth to it. Her nostrils… they flare up while she's talking to mom. And that makes my stomach hurt. The woman hands mom a thick packet of papers and the two of them stand next to each other, flipping through them.

Mom's nodding while the woman is pointing at parts of the packet and explaining them. I can't stop staring at her, though. Her skin is so sun-kissed and tan that I can tell that it's natural. The woman runs her hand through her hair and shakes it, revealing two more tiny brown specks on her neckline. My lips curl when I see them. I wonder if she feels the way I do. She obviously doesn't know me because we've clearly never seen each other before. But I can't help but wonder if she feels sick too. I watch mom and read her lips. She said "Josephine." The woman's tired lips curl up into a smile and she puts her bony little hands on her chest. Mom takes a step towards the door and I quickly cease all contact with the blinds and the curtains.

The front door swings open again and through it walks mom again. As soon as she sees me, she puts the packet of papers down on the stand in the hallway and clears her throat. "…There's somebody outside that wants to talk to you." With my bottom lip clenched between my top teeth, I nod. "You don't have to talk to her if you don't want to, Jo. I can tell her to go away if you want me to. She'll understand if that's not what you want." She just looks at me with sorrow in her eyes. "But she did ask to speak to you." I just look down at the floor, thinking about what I want. "…You know who that is, don't you? …That why you threw up when you answered the door?" I nod my head, because that's the truth. I know who she is. I don't KNOW her…but I'm pretty sure I know who she is. It'd be hard for me not to know who she is.

"…I don't feel good." I whisper. Tears sting my eyes, begging me to let them fall.

"…How do you know her, Jo? Have you met her before?"

I just roll my eyes and look at her. _I'm not stupid. I know who the woman is. I've never seen her a day in my life. I've never met her, I've never even seen so much as a picture of her. But come on…get real. I know who the woman is. I looked her dead in her eyes. I almost told her "hello." I know who the woman is. And the fact that I know who she is…_

_Scares me to death._


	58. Goodbye

I shove my index finger inside my ear to block out any excess noise as I listen with my free ear to the door. You ever notice how it's in your instincts to stare at and listen to things that you have no business staring at or listening to? It's like an accident scene, sort of. When you ride past an accident scene and you just can't bring yourself to look away from the flashing lights and the chaos of everyone rushing around, doing their jobs? And even though you know it's disrespectful, you still feel the burning need inside of your body to just…watch. I guess you could compare how I'm feeling to that. I know that I'm not doing anything but further damaging myself by gawking at the sight and sound of the woman I just barely know, but I can't stop.

"No, no. It's totally my fault. I shouldn't have just shown up like this. I get how scary this must be for her."

"She's just been through a lot. It's not easy for her to just be thrown into something like this. I tried to talk to her about it, but it's just not something that she wants and I don't feel right trying to force it on her."

"That's how it should be. I don't want her to feel forced." It sounds to me like she's crying, but I can't bring myself to look outside the window at her either so I'm just gonna guess that she is by the way she sounds. "You see, I was afraid that if… if I had said something before I came here, I would never get to see her. I wasn't thinking that I'd frighten her."

"I understand." Mom is being way too nice. Why doesn't she just kick her out? Kick her off the porch and tell her to leave us alone. I'm just trying to be happy for once in my life. She's gonna mess this up for me. "Thanks again for bringing the papers by. I'm not sure just how long it could've taken for them to come in the mail, but I'm sure that you sped things up a little for us."

"No, thank _you _for taking care of her." She clears her throat. "I haven't done many things right by…Josephine. It feels like the right thing for me to do. If I can make her happy, it's worth it."

"It's not a problem. I love her and I'm more than prepared to take care of her."

"…If you don't mind me asking…" She pauses for a second. "What is she like? Is she….okay? Did she turn out alright? I was really hoping to talk to her when I came here, you know?"

I don't know why. Maybe I'm just a really nice person. Maybe I'm just too much of a little softie to remain cold-hearted. Maybe I'm just a fool. But my heart starts to feel… heavy. I take my head away from the door and wrap my hand around the knob. Before I open it, I take a quick glance at myself in the mirror that's hanging just above the coatrack. I take a deep breath, turn the doorknob and open it up. I don't look at her. I focus my attention on mom, strictly because it's easier and step out onto the porch with the both of them. I stuff my hands into the pockets of the thin jacket I have on and stand close to the door, just in case I can't take this.

Mom takes a couple steps toward me and puts her hand on my shoulder. "Did you change your mind?" She squeezes my shoulder in a loving gesture. I shrug my shoulders. "Do you want me to stay out here with you?" Again, I shrug. "I'll be in the house, okay? Ring the bell if you need me." Instead of shrugging, I nod this time. She takes her hand off my shoulder and disappears inside the house, leaving me alone with her. It's weird because I still don't feel anything. I'm still just so comfortably numb.

I can't, however, bring myself to look at her. So I keep my head down and just stare at my shoes. I'm actually pretty tall, but my jeans are a little too long for my legs. The cuff I put in them this morning is starting to come out so I'm stepping on the back of my pants. I have so many other things to think about right now, but all I can think about is how I should've kept the pair of hip-hugger jeans I wore to school today on, instead of changing into these.

"I um…" Her voice is actually quite pretty. The tone of it is unlike anything I've ever heard before. It's the perfect pitch, kind of raspy and not-at-all motherly. "I don't know what to say to you." Her tone raises up a little, like she finds something funny. I wrinkle my brow. "I had a long list of things I wanted to say to you before I came here, but now… I can't think of a single thing to say."

_Good. Then just don't say anything at all. You can start by telling me why you're here. And then, if I'm just too much of a burden for you to figure out what to say to your DAUGHTER, then you can just leave. Leave. I don't want you here and I don't want to know you. _So why couldn't I fathom letting her walk away? If I don't want to know her like I don't think that I do, then why couldn't I stomach the thought of just letting her… leave me? Again?

"…You're so pretty." I can tell that she's nervous just by the way she's talking. "Your grandmother once told me how pretty you were but it's another thing to actually see it…" She takes one uncertain step towards me and I back away. "I… I uh…" She starts to stutter and I bite my lip. "I do have something for you. Since I…. since I can't really remember what I needed to…say, I'll just…" She reaches in her pocket and produces a piece of folded up, lined paper. I finally pick my head up and just look past her. I don't understand how she expects me to just… be welcoming? This is the first time I've ever seen her in my life. I don't know anything about her. No explanation, no introduction… I don't even know her name. "Can I hug you?"

My brow wrinkles HARD and I squint my eyes at her. Is she serious? She wants to hug me? I take another step away from her and rub my temple with my index finger and my middle finger. My head is starting to ache. She takes a couple more steps towards me and I have nowhere else to go besides being stuck in the corner of the porch so I don't step back anymore. I feel so…small. She's walking towards me and towards me and towards me and I can't go anywhere. "You know who I am, don't you Josephine?" I tilt my head to the side and nod. _You look just like me…EXACTLY like me. How could there be any mistake as to who you are?_ She touches my hair and I pull away. She touches my jawline, like she didn't catch my drift, and I pull away again. "I'm sorry, sweetie." She takes her hands away from me and puts them in her sweatshirt pocket. This is so very awkward…

"…So how old are you now? S…sixteen?" She runs her hands through her own hair and sticks them back in her pockets. Her nostrils flare out a little and my heart really hurts when they do that. Mine do that… "You're a freshman in high school… What are your grades like? Are you…a good student?" I nod my head. "That's good." She cocks her head to the side like she's examining me. "…You still have it." I raise my eyebrow at her. "My beauty mark." She puts her finger on the one beside my mouth and I just let her. "That's how I knew you were my baby. It comforted me to know that if I was ever unsure about if you were mine or not… I could look at your mouth and tell." She switches her index finger to her thumb and starts stroking my face. I push her hand away from me.

She puts her hands back in her pocket and rocks back and forth on her feet. We're alike…in more ways than I originally thought. "So… Josephine. That's a pretty… tough moniker. Do you mind if I call you Jojo?"

I tuck my hair behind my ear. "No."

I watch her face nearly melt when she hears me talk. "Oh…" I'm not sure if that was supposed to be a reply or a groan, but she holds her chest and her jaw starts to tremble as her eyes fill up with tears. I just stare at her with an expressionless, blank face. She sucks her teeth and shakes her head. "Look at you…" I just keep looking at her. "Look at how… how perfect you are. You're so beautiful…"

I close my eyes and rub my temple some more. "W…Why are you here? What do you…want from me?" My voice won't come out in anything higher than a whisper because I'm totally trying to fight back tears. "…I don't know you…."

Out of the blue, she takes a long step towards me and puts her arms around me. _No…stop…stop. _I don't know how to hug her back. I don't know how to really do something that I don't want to do. So my arms remain at my sides and my body is just stiff. "I know you don't know me, sweetie. I know you don't…" Her hands rub along my back. _Is this how this is supposed to feel? Is this how it's supposed to… make me feel? I feel so strange. My heart is aching, but I feel connected to this woman. I don't know her… but my heart feels like it does. _"But I know you. I know you… I remember you."

"Please get off me." I whisper to her. I shut my eyes and lick my lip. "You don't know me and I don't know you… I don't know…" Forcefully, but still maintaining my respect, I push her off me. "I don't feel very good, I need to go into the house." I sidestep her and walk to the front door.

"Jo! Wait… please don't go. Just… just read this." She hands me the slip of paper and looks at me with sincerity in her eyes. "I know that you don't know me. And I know that this is an uncomfortable experience for you. But please. I just wanted to talk to you before I let you go…forever. I want to let you know that I love you."

"…You don't, though." I grab ahold of the doorknob and shove the piece of paper inside my pocket like it means nothing to me. "You don't love me…you never did. You didn't even… you didn't even give me away! You left me! What if… what if nobody found me?! What if I had been out there in the rain and I had died? I was a BABY… a baby, m…mom. Just a tiny little baby. I was still fresh, too. Two weeks old…how do you do that to somebody you love? Please tell me." I wipe soft tears off my cheek and sniff. "I know everything… I'm not stupid. I grew up… in a house where my grandmother didn't spend every waking moment looking after me. I knew where she hid all the newspaper clippings and the court documents. I know everything."

"I was all messed up, honey. I couldn't take care of you and I knew that. I knew I couldn't do it. I didn't have the money I was no older than you… I was all strung out. I tried my best but I couldn't do it. I made mistakes but I always loved you. I… I had you without any painkillers… you'll never know what kind of love I have for you."

"…If that's love, I don't want it." My chest is so heavy. "You didn't try. And if you loved me, you wouldn't… let…drugs win. You chose drugs over your two week old baby. I spent… I spent all my life wondering if you ever thought about me. I spent the better half of my childhood loving you… but you didn't give a damn about me. You live right in Olympia. If you wanted to see me that bad, wouldn't you just show up like you just did?"

"Your grandmother kept me from you! She didn't want me to know you. She wouldn't let me know your name, she wouldn't let me be there for birthdays, Christmases… she kept you from me. I wrote you letters that she didn't give to you, I sent you gifts that she wouldn't let you have… I didn't even know your name until today, because she wouldn't let me…"

"…And I thank her for that. You… you didn't complete any rehab programs. I'm still… hung up on how you left me." I lick my lips. "They took a day to find me when you left me. I was outside in front of the fire station for 24 hours before a worker found me. She was leaving for the night…and she accidentally stepped on me. Because you put me in a SHOEBOX. Like I was garbage…" I can't even look at her anymore. "…I know everything. And… how could you? I just don't understand."

"Honey, I know. I know all of this… but you're okay. You turned out okay. I did something right…"

"Really?! You know all of this?" I can't believe that she has the nerve to say that she knows everything she put me through. She clearly hasn't the slightest idea. "No… you know NOTHING. You know that you left me. You know that I was outside in the rain for a day. You know that I was so sick that grammy couldn't take me out of the hospital for a week, because I hadn't eaten for TWO weeks. But you have no idea what else you've put me through… You know what it's like to live your life feeling like nobody wants you? Do you know how…hard it is to explain to yourself that the ONE person in the world that's supposed to love you more than anything in the world… didn't? You have any idea what it's like to wonder about somebody that you're supposed to know?"

"Jo, look—"

"No! You shut up… you don't get to talk. It's my turn. And you don't get to call me that. You don't get to call me by a nickname. You don't know me." I cross my arms. "Why? I just… I just wanna know why, okay? If… if you knew that you didn't want me… why didn't you just give me up for adoption? Why didn't you abort me? Why wait nine months to have me and then just decide that I'm not worth it? I was your baby…" My jaw is trembling so bad. "I mean… what did I do? Was I… was I ugly? Was I an ugly baby? Were you hoping for a boy instead? Why didn't you want me?"

"It's not that I didn't want you, sweetie. I just couldn't take care of you." She outstretches her arm and puts her hand on my waist. "Please talk to me, Jo…sephine. Just give me ten minutes… I just need to feel like seeing my baby wasn't a complete waste. Can you give me that?"

"Why should I?"

"Because I love you. I wasn't the best… but I do love you. And not a day went by that I didn't think about you. I feel like I owe you an explanation. And before I leave you alone forever, I wanna give you one. You're right… you were...and still are my baby." I roll my eyes at her shitty little speech. I don't believe her, needless to say. But something in my body possesses me to walk over to the swinging chair hanging from the ceiling of the porch and sit down. She sits right beside me. I'm not sure if I feel bad for her as much as I feel curious about what she might say.

"…What's your name?" I ask her, tucking my hair behind my ear. "…Grammy never told me. Granted, I never really asked… but. I've…" I look out towards the road and watch a car drive by. "I've heard her refer to you as 'Lis.' …Is your name Lisa or something?" I play with a loose string on my pants just to avoid eye contact with her. "I tried looking you up on Facebook once." I admit. "There aren't any Lisa Wilsons in Olympia…"

She cracks a smile at me, flashing her yellowed but perfectly aligned teeth. "It's Melissa. I've always been 'Lis' to your grandmother, even when I was a baby. And it's not Wilson, it's Baker. I've married since then…." Like she can't resist touching me, she puts her hand against mine. I don't really have the strength to move it, so I don't. "She never told me yours either. I knew she was gonna name you what she wanted to name you…so I never bothered telling her what I named you myself."

"…You named me?" I look over at her. She's really beautiful, actually. It's like looking in a mirror. A tired, older, more flawed version of me. I can tell by the texture of her skin that she's been an addict for years…but I can also tell that she was really beautiful once. "And it wasn't Josephine?"

"Nope." She keeps smiling at me, and admittedly so, it's hard for me not to crack a smile myself. "You weren't an ugly baby, by the way." She holds my hand and I'm surprisingly okay with it. "You were beautiful. I had you in the bathroom of my old apartment and I was so scared that I had hurt you or something, because I had to…pull you out." I wrinkle my nose at that. That's gross. "I spent five minutes holding you against my chest and rubbing your back because I thought you weren't alive. You weren't crying when you came outta me. But as soon as I stopped rubbing your little back, you yelled at me." She chuckles and I laugh too. "Everyone loved you, by the way. I lived with four other girls. They really loved you. You just wanted to be held and everyone loved holding you so it worked out. Most babies come out ugly, you know. But not you. You were gorgeous. I used to put you hair up in a little mohawk when I was bathing you… you had enough of it. I'm glad to see it stuck."

"You gave me baths?" I scoot closer to her. _What are you doing, Jo? Don't fall in love with this woman. She's leaving you. _

"Of course I did. You were with me for two whole weeks." She holds onto my wrist instead of my hand this time. "You didn't like getting baths. You would scream when I was bathing you and the only way you'd stop was if I kissed your toes. And you liked to suck on your thumb and fall asleep to my heartbeat." She sighs. "I was stupid though. I was seventeen and stupid. I didn't know that I couldn't feed you milk from a carton. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to put you in water until your umbilical cord fell out. I didn't know that I should've taken you to the doctors to get your shots. I thought I could do everything myself."

"…You make it sound like you were a good mom." I clear my throat. "Why'd you give me away? It sounded like you were okay… you just needed guidance."

"I was in Los Angeles, Jo. I was supposed to live there with your father, but he ran off to Fresno with some other girl. So I was alone. I had nobody. I had nothing but a baby. I knew I couldn't keep you…especially when I was as messed up as I was. I hate to say it, but… the drugs were more important to me than you were back then. I was an addict, sweetheart. Your father showed me the drugs and I was messed up from there on out. I didn't know much, but I knew that I couldn't take care of a little baby. I loved you, Jo… but love wasn't gonna feed you and buy you diapers. I knew you were better off without me."

"Then why'd it take you so long to come back? I could've… I could've gotten to know you… we could've been close. Why now?"

"Drugs." She sighs again. "I'm still not clean. But I am glad that you have a nice house and people that love you. K…Kelly? I think that's her name." I nod at her. "She's a good person. She's a GOOD person…and I want you to be here with her. And when I leave here today, you might not hear from me ever again, you might hear from me. I don't know yet. But I don't want to confuse you. And I'm not here to win you back… because I'm way too late for that. I just wanted to give you an explanation… and I wanted you. I know you probably don't believe me and you probably don't love me and I know I'm ranting at this point, but I never meant to hurt you, Tay. I just wanted you to be better off without me, and I knew you would be."

"…You called me Tay." I put my tongue in my cheek and try really hard not to call bullshit on her part. She can't even remember my name. How do I know she's not high right now?

"..I'm sorry, Jo." She pats my kneecap. "I spent the last sixteen years referring to you as Tay. It's a tough habit to break." She touches my hair. "…Especially when 'Josephine' isn't exactly the name I would've chosen for you."

"Were you gonna name me 'Taylor' or something?"

"I did name you Taylor." She uncurls a random curl in my hair with her finger and looks me in my eyes. Your name was Taylor for two weeks after you were born and because your grandma never told me what she decided to officially name you, I just kept Taylor. Taylor was never officially on your birth certificate or anything like that, but I tell everybody in AA that I have a daughter named Taylor… I guess I can tell them that her name's actually Josephine…" Her voice trails off.

"Leanne. Josephine Leanne McKenna...Wilson. McKenna's my confirmation name."

"Funny." She cracks a half-smile. "Leanne's my confirmation name. I never thought your grandmother remembered that, but I guess she did. She made it your middle name."

"…That's weird."

She huffs. "I guess Jo Leanne isn't bad. It's not as good as Taylor Paige… but it's not bad."

I smile at her. "…I think Taylor would've been easier to grow up with." I bite my lip and take a quick thought about what I'm about to do. _It won't hurt… I don't think. _I scoot towards her a little more and put my head on her shoulder. I think I just made her life complete by doing that, because she puts her arm around me and puts her lips to the crown of my head.

"I'm sorry you got stuck with me as a mother." She rubs my arm and keeps her lips to my head. "But you're a great kid, and it's my loss. I'm the one that's missing out on you. I have to live with my decisions, though. And I don't want any of this to fall back on you." I close my eyes and keep laying on her. "…Kelly told me I can send you things on Christmas and your birthday, if it's okay with you. I'm not gonna keep coming around, just to disappoint you. Because the truth is, I'll probably never get clean. But I promise that I will send you things on birthdays and holidays… I'll never forget about you, Jo. Is it okay with you if I send you gifts, even if I don't come around?"

"I don't mind."

"It's not easy to let you go, Jo." She takes her arm from around my shoulders and stands up. "I should probably go now… before I decide that I can't leave you." I stand up right along with her. "Can I have a hug and maybe a kiss?" I nod at her. She puts her arms around me and I hug her right back. "I always knew you were too good for me. Even when I was kissing your feet in that dirty old bathtub… I knew you were too good for me. I want you to stay here. All those papers are signed and I'm officially not your mother anymore." She kisses me on my cheek and it's not until then that I realize that we're both crying just a little bit. "Don't think that I'm doing this because I don't want you." She whispers in my ear. "I'm doing this because I love you and you don't deserve to have someone like me running in and out of your life. I'm doing this because I really, really love you, Jo."

"...I wish I could say the same." I bite my lip. "I don't know you well enough to love you, Melissa."

"No…sweetie, shh." She puts her finger against my lips. "You don't have to love me. That's not how it works. You'll never love me like I love you and that's fine. Don't apologize for that." She reaches in her back pocket and produces another slip of shiny white paper. "I want you to have this. You can throw it away….you can keep it. I don't mind. But I want you to have this. Because the only picture I have of you is a Christmas picture your grandmother sent to my treatment center when you were three years old. I want you to have one of me…"

"Thank you." I stuff the picture in my pocket. "Maybe…when I get older, we can have dinner together or something." I shrug.

"It's up to you." She clears her throat and wipes her tears away. "So uh… I'll write you and I'll talk to you later."

"Is this goodbye?"

"I think it is."

"Bye..."

"Goodbye, Tay." And that's the last thing I hear out of her mouth. I watch, with a really light feeling in my chest, as she walks down the front steps and gets into a beat up, dark green little coupe. As soon as I see her drive away, I take the picture out of my pocket and unfold it. I look down at it.

She's really young…she looks like a blonde me. And she's holding a perfect-toned baby with oodles and oodles of thick, straight black hair with cream-colored skin and a pink sleeper on. She's kissing the baby—me, on the lips and I'm sleeping. I can tell that I'm still a relatively new baby, because my face is still a little bit swollen from birth and my lips are really tiny. I refold the picture up and put it back in my pocket. I stand on my tiptoes and look down the street at the coupe as it disappears into the horizon. "Bye mom…" I whisper.

I turn around and go back inside the house. Mom…my REAL mom, is standing beside the window. She was watching the entire time, I think. She looks at me with outstretched arms, offering me a hug. "Are you okay?" She asks. I walk to her and fall into her arms. "You alright, baby?"

"Mhm." I nod, giving her a really tight hug. And I'm not lying to her. I'm okay. I feel…lighter. Like I'm at peace or something. Maybe I have closure, maybe I'm just growing up a bit. But that wasn't nearly as hard as I was expecting it to be. And if I hadn't been raised to hate that woman…

I might have actually liked her.

* * *

**Tues, Nov 16, 2013**

**9:45 p.m.**

**Alex: **hey

**9:46 p.m.**

**Me: **hold on babe i'm about to get in the shower. i'll message you when i get out.

**Alex: **k.

**10:01p.m.**

**Me: **okay i'm out. what's up?

**10:04 p.m.**

**Alex: **how was ur shower?

**Me: **…hot? :p

**Alex: **wish I was there

**Me: **me too ;)

**Alex: **would u have let me join u if I was?

**Me: **of course. but it would've had to have been longer than 20 mins if you know what i mean ;)

**Alex: **hmmm.

**Alex: **so when am I gonna b able 2 see u? when r u ungrounded?

**Me: **you were supposed to come over today but you didn't. what was up with that?

**Alex: **ross txted me n said not 2 come bc u were busy with something n we woulda got caught if I came

**Me: **yeah that was true. my mom came by to meet me and i was talking to her for a little while. shane was right to tell you not come.

**Alex: **your real ma?

**Me: **yeah. random, right? it was cool though. she was cool. she came by to drop off these papers to make sure i can get adopted and we talked and she left. it was weird but it was okay. not as bad as i thought it was gonna be you know?

**Alex: **that was good babe. I'm glad it wasn't that bad 4 u. but when are u ungrounded? I really miss u. I haven't seen u since we broke up

**Me: **you see me everyday in school.

**Alex: **yea but I'm missin ur kisses n stuff. I want 2 b with u for at least an hour or something

**Me: **idk when i'm ungrounded. i'm still in pretty deep shit. but i miss your kisses too :/ and i want to hold you.

**Alex: **I miss u so much. don't call me stupid or anything ok?

**Me: **i wont

**Alex: **I kinda just want 2 hold u and watch girl code lol I missed u a lot when we were broke up

**Me: **aww :) i wanna lay on your chest and watch girl code too. will you play with my hair?

**Alex: **yup. anything u want babe

**Me: **as soon as i'm ungrounded, i swear i'm over your house. i miss coming over and watching netflix and girl code and you play call of duty

**Alex: **u kno what "netflix" turns into tho. so don't say that

**Me: **well I'm saying it! ;) i want to come over and watch tv with you. netflix and all lol

**Alex: **I think I need some "netflix" in my life too

**Me: **weren't you getting "netflix" from Olivia? js.

**Alex: **hell no lol. i just said that 2 make u mad babe. Ur the only one for like… months

**Me: **ughhhhhh why do i have to be grounded?

**Alex: **I know

**Me: **the whole time we were broken up, i was just thinking about how much i'd miss it.

**Alex: **miss wat?

**Me: **you know.

**Alex: **its not like we do it all the time enough for u to miss it

**Me: **yeah but it's been way too long now. plus, i'll just miss the other stuff too.

**Alex: **like?

**Me: **don't make me hurt you. you know what i'm talking about stupidhead.

**Alex: **mayb I just wanna hear u say it tho lol

**Me: **well it's no secret that you don't just talk with your mouth lol

**Alex: **as soon as ur ungrounded ur mine

**Me: **i honestly don't know if i can wait that long. :(

**Alex: **we'll both b fine

**Me: **okay. i want to talk to you for forever, but i'm so tired right now.

**Alex: **go to sleep babe. We can talk 2morro

**Me: **okaay. i love you.

**Alex: **i love you too

* * *

"Dang. As soon as you get Alex back, you go back to dressing like a straight bum. You could've at least worn jeans twice in a row. That wouldn't have hurt." As soon as I get into her car, April starts poking fun of me and the way I'm dressed. I went to bed last night with the thought that I was gonna wear jeans and a nice shirt, but I woke up this morning with other plans. She looks behind me at the house and squints. "I thought Shane was riding with us too…"

"He didn't go to sleep until like two in the morning so he's staying home." I buckle my seatbelt and fix the drawstrings of my sweatpants. "And shut up. Rosie the Riveter didn't die for girls to wear jeans to school two days in a row." She starts driving off to go to school. "And how did you know me and Alex are back together? We didn't tell anybody yet."

"It's so obvious. He's all giddy and happy again and you're glowing. You and Alex are pretty much soulmates."

"Much like you and Jackson? I heard you two are back together too." I throw my hair up into a lazy ponytail and glare at her.

"Yeah." She starts smiling so wide that her cheeks turn immediately red. "What can I say? Jackson's my babe. But you knew that."

"…Alex is my babe too. I don't know what I'd do without that man." I realize that I left a strand of my hair out of the ponytail, so I stuff it up underneath my ponytail holder and yank it tight. "I haven't seen him seen him in a while, though. I'm so grounded it's not funny. He was supposed to come over for like five minutes last night, but I got all busy and it didn't happen and I just really miss my babe."

"You guys see each other in school."

"Barely. It sucks being a freshman and dating a very busy senior." She pulls into the school's student parking lot and I grab my purse and my books to prepare to get out after she parks. "And then it doesn't even count because we can't make out in school. I just want to spend time with my baby and I can't because I'm on house arrest."

"I won't even tell you to chill out because I'd be going crazy just like you if I hadn't talked to Jackson in a while." She gets out of her car after she parks and I do too. I adjust my sweatpants and look around when I get out. _Hey… _Alex is just now getting to school too. He's parking his car at the moment.

"Go 'head instead inside, Ape. I'm gonna wait for him." I motion towards Alex's car. I start walking over to him, though. Aaron gets out of the car first. He waves at me and I wave back, sitting on the hood of the car and waiting for Alex to get out. He gets out and slams his door shut behind him. "Good morning." I say to him.

"I had an idea on my way here." He stands in front of me while I'm sitting on the hood and puts his hands on my legs. "So we can spend time together without you getting in trouble."

"And what is that?" I'm resisting the urge to kiss him right now. I stare at his lips, just to make it obvious to him that I want to kiss him though.

"Why don't you just get in the car? And we can go back to your house or my house, either one. It'll be like we never even came to school. And we can have the whole day together. It's…it's what? 7:00 right now? We can have all day together. I'll drop you off back home at 2:30 to make it seem like we both went to school…"

"Alex, that's crazy. I can't just ditch school to be with you. I… I want to, but… that doesn't make any sense. What would we even do? Where would we go? We can't just… you didn't think this through, baby."

"Jo, yes I did." He leans forward and pushes his lips against mine. "We'll have ALL day together. You're not sneaking out of the house to see me and I don't have to be gone by the time your mom gets out of the shower. We can just go home…like we never even came to school. Me and you can spend all day together and I'll drop you back off at 2:30."

"I can't. Shane didn't come to school today so my house is just… no."

"Okay, then my house. And that works perfectly. Ross isn't in school so he can't go home and tell that you weren't in school either. It's perfect, babe. Aaron's at school, Amber's at school and my mom's working until 3:30. The house is empty. It's perfect…and you know it's perfect."

"…You're serious? You seriously want to ditch school and spend the day together?"

"Yeah! We can go home and go back to sleep until like 10 if you want to… then we can just… be together all day. Of course I'm serious babe. Come on…"

"…Okay." I kiss him on his lips again and get off the hood of his car. "Come on… before I change my mind."

"I told you it's brilliant." He winks at me as he gets back into the driver's side of his car.

"….Let's just go. I can't wait."


	59. Alone Time

"What the hell…" I quickly snatch a small cardboard box out of his hand and glare at him with my infamous, "angry eyes." I hold the box to my nose and sniff it then toss it to the side, onto the counter. "What are you doing?" I cross my arms over my chest and tap my foot at him, waiting for an explanation.

"What? I'm starving…" He tries to grab the box again but I smack his hand. "What's your deal?"

"You kill me eating junk for breakfast." I grab the box off the counter again and walk it over to the trashcan. "How long has this pizza been in your fridge? It wouldn't kill you to eat something suitable for breakfast." I toss the pizza box inside the trash and go over to his fridge. "Lemme fix you something." I look around inside the fridge and grab a carton of eggs and a pack of unopened bacon. When I turn back around, he has a powdered donut in his hand. "Alex!"

"What?!" He takes a bite of the donut and chews it.

"…I swear I talk to myself when I talk to you. You don't listen to a damn thing I say half the time." I open up a cabinet and produce a skillet. "Did you not hear a word that I said? I said stop eating junk for breakfast. I'm gonna fix you something to eat if you could just wait." I put the skillet on the stovetop and turn on the fire. "Do you have pancake mix?"

"…Pancake huh?" He stuffs the last piece of donut into his mouth and chews it obnoxiously. "I have no idea what you're…" He pauses a moment to swallow the donut and continues. "Talking about."

"Nevermind." I lay the bacon in the skillet with a fork and leave it alone to cook while I search the pantry for a box of pancake mix. I know how to make pancakes from scratch, so if he doesn't have any I'll just make them from scratch anyway. But it's a lot easier for me to use the mix where you just have to add water to make the batter. _There it is. _I grab a red box of batter mix and put it on the counter. "If I make this, you better eat it. I'm not gonna make all this food just for you to waste it."

"Of course I'll eat it. I'm starving." He pulls out a chair and sits down at the small table in the corner of the kitchen beside the dishwasher. "I didn't know you could cook though. Is it gonna be edible or are you gonna burn it?"

"Shut up, loser." I dump some of the pancake mix inside a measuring cup and add the right amount of water into it. "I'm a good cook. I HATE cooking… but I'm good at it." I stir the mix with a fork to blend it up well. "I make dinner for Shane and his little brothers sometimes and I'm AWESOME at it… just saying." I wink at him and go back to the stove to turn the bacon over. I glance at the clock to see how much time I have left with him. It's only 7:30. "What are we gonna do after we eat?"

"I thought you said you want to go back to sleep for a little while." He's busy fiddling around with a salt shaker. "So I thought we were going back to sleep for a couple hours."

"I kinda don't want to waste the time we have together sleeping." Once the bacon is really close to being done, I slide it over to make room to scramble the eggs in the skillet. I pour the eggs into the skillet and go back to the cabinet to grab another pan to make the pancakes in. "We only have but so much time together…I don't really wanna waste it sleeping."

"Babe, if you're tired then we can sleep for a couple hours. It's 7:30 right now. We can go back to sleep until 9 or 10 and we'll still have time to spend together. I'm not going anywhere." He slides out of his chair and grabs two plates from the cabinet above the sink. He grabs two coffee mugs as well. "Do you like orange juice?"

"Mhm." I nod my head and scrape the eggs with the fork to scramble them. I'm really good at multitasking while I cook, so I take the finished bacon out of the pan and put it on a small saucer next to the stove for it to cool. I leave the eggs alone for a couple moments so they can cook all the way through and start on the pancakes. "Can you get me a spatula, baby?"

He opens up a drawer and hands me a little black spatula so I can flip the pancakes with it. I take it off him and scrape the bottom of the pancake to make sure it's not sticking to the pan. He stands behind me while I'm at the stove and puts his hands on my hips. "If it tastes like it smells then it'll probably be pretty good." He hovers over me and turns his head a little so he can kiss my cheek. I close my eyes and smile. _I really did miss him. _He moves my hair out of the way with his fingers and kisses my temple too. "You're gonna have to just deal with my kisses today. I'm making up for lost time."

"I don't really mind." I turn the stovetop off when I'm finished using it and make both of our plates, being sure to give him the brunt of all the food. He's a man so he should have more than me. "I feel all…domesticated and whatnot."

"You feel house-trained? Cause you're cooking for me?" As if he doesn't want me to leave his sight, he's following me around close behind me while I whizz around the kitchen to grab forks and syrup and butter to complete our breakfast. "I'll make you lunch. We have to take turns. My lunch probably won't be as good as your breakfast, but I'll still make it."

"Well, yeah… because I'm obviously the better cook." I put the plates down at the kitchen table. "But I'll give you an A plus for effort and stuff." I sit down and grab my fork. He sits across from me and immediately picks up a slice of bacon. "Let me know if it's good or not." I cut off a piece of pancake and shovel it into my mouth.

"It's great, babe." He dusts off all five pieces of his bacon first and takes a long sip of orange juice. "So you got grounded for being drunk?" He cracks a smile and starts on his scrambled eggs.

I playfully roll my eyes and finish off my pancakes. "It's not even funny. After you and Jackson left, me and April just drank. We drank so much. I was so damn drunk… I was drunk off my ass, babe. It was awful. I threw up more than half my body weight, I swear. And I woke up with a screaming hangover and I'm just never drinking again, so." I pick up a piece of bacon and take a bite. "…So how was Denny's with Olivia?"

"Before you start going off on a tangent, let me explain." He puts his fork down and looks at me. "It wasn't a date. I went to Denny's with my mom for dinner on Sunday night because Aaron was out with Heather and Amber went to the skating rink with my aunt. So it was just us and she didn't want to cook so we went to Denny's for dinner. Well, my mom had to get her food to go because my aunt called and she needed my mom to come grab Amber because she wanted to go home. So I stayed so I could finish my food until my mom came back to grab me. So I was alone, okay?" He's really making a hardcore effort to explain to me what happened, but I have to be honest when I say that I don't care. I'm not mad at him or anything and I don't care if he went on a date or not. He's with me now and that's all I care about. But still, I let him finish. "And Olivia was there with her friends and they came over and sat by me. She was all over me. We had some laughs, but that's it. She was trying to get with me but I wasn't feeling it."

I nod. "Did you sleep with her? You can tell me if you did. I kind of already got the impression that you did anyway. If you banged her, you can tell me." I'm not sure if I want to know the answer to that question, but whatever. I asked, didn't I? He looks down at his plate with a guilty look on his face. "…Alex! No… NO…. Why?! Why?!" I thought I was cool, but actually knowing that he did is bugging me. "Baby, no… why her?! She's not even cute!" I put my face in my hands and sigh. "Why'd you have to fuck that girl? Out of all the girls that want you, you fucked her?! Why? Oh my god…ew." I wipe my mouth and my tongue off. "AND I KISSED YOU! AFTER YOU FUCKED HER I KISSED YOU!"

"See, I knew you were gonna be mad at me. I didn't sleep with her, Jo." He reaches across the table and grabs ahold of my wrist. "Monday night, after you flipped out on her at lunch that day, we hung out again. I told her that it was a friendly thing because I was still kinda stuck on you. And she made it seem like she was okay with it but I guess she really wasn't. I swear I didn't kiss her, I didn't fuck her… you're the only one I've had for a WHILE. She gave me head and that was IT. And that didn't last long. She started but I made her stop because I just kept thinking about you and it was weird."

"…You let her suck you off?" I wrinkle my nose and stick my tongue out. "Ew… she's so ugly."

"It wasn't like that, babe. I swear it wasn't anything. She started but then I told her to quit. It was just a bad experience, especially with you on my mind." He runs his hand through his hair. "I'm beginning to think that I'll never be able to be with another girl. It's you…always you. I compare every girl to you and they're just not good enough for me or something. Then I go all crazy when I think about how you're with anybody else. I think I'm a tad bit obsessed with you."

"…Are you gonna kill me if we break up for good? Is it that… 'If I can't have you, nobody can' kind of obsessed? Should I alert the authorities?"

"…Probably, yeah." He takes a sip of his orange juice and stands up to collect our empty plates. "I won't kill you. I'll just kidnap you and keep you in my basement until you agree to marry me." He puts our empty plates in the sink and runs water over them. "But you're really not mad at me for the whole Olivia thing? I was scared to tell you."

"I'm not mad, baby. First of all, we were broken up and second of all, I trust that you were telling the truth when you said it really wasn't anything major. I wish you would've been with someone more attractive, but… you know." I put our cups in the sink too. "It's 8:00. We need to go to sleep now if we want to be up by at least ten or so."

"Is Olivia really that ugly though?" Again, he stands behind me and puts his hands on my hips. "I didn't think she was really that bad…" He moves his hands from my waist up to my stomach but back down to my waist. "Nowhere near as beautiful as you…" He kisses my temple again. "Nobody's as beautiful as you, though."

"Nobody?" I put my hands on his hands and follow along with them as he just caresses my hips.

"Nobody." He slides his hands down a little and they're inside the waistband of my sweatpants, because they're a little bit too big for me. I wore them to school to be comfy today, but if I knew that I was gonna ditch, I would've definitely worn pajama pants or something. His hands scrape along the silky fabric of my underwear. "Aren't these my pants?"

"…Nooooo." I laugh and put my hands in my pants with his. "What's yours is mine… okay?"

"And what's yours is mine too?" He asks and I nod. "So these are mine?" He kisses me on my lips. "Is that what you're saying?" I nod my head and close my eyes. "And this?" His hands leave my waist and wrap around to my butt. He cups his hands around my butt and squeezes it pretty hard but it doesn't really hurt. "Mine too?" I crack a smile and turn around so I'm facing him.

I stand on my tiptoes, wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him. "I said whatever is mine is yours, didn't I?" I kiss him again and take one of my arms away from his neck. "And whatever's yours is mine." Instead of his lips, I kiss his neck this time around. "So if that's yours…" I slide my hand down his chest and stop right at his lower stomach. "Then this is mine. Get it?" Just like his hands are down my pants, I put mine down his. "It's not that hard of a concept."

"…No, it's definitely not." He wraps his hands around the inner parts of my thighs and picks me up. So he doesn't drop me, I wrap my legs around his waist and put my arms around his neck. I put my head on his shoulder and curl my fingers through his soft hair while he starts walking. "Are you still tired?" He asks. I nod my head and I can tell that he's tired too because his voice is all raspy and stuff. His sleepy voice is the sexiest possible thing. He walks into his room and turns on the light. He goes over to his bed, leans down and tries to put me down on it. I keep my legs secured tight around his waist and I squeeze my arms around his neck so he can't put me down. "Come on, babe."

"No." I mumble. I tighten my grip around his neck and squeeze my ankles together to make sure he can't get me off him. He lifts up and slams me down on his bed, trying to get me off. "No!"

"Come on, Jo… I gotta go pee." He hovers over top of me. My back is on his bed but I'm still not letting him put me down. He lifts up and slams me down again. "Jo."

"No! I don't wanna let you go…" He slams me down again and I laugh. "Stoppit…"

"I have to pee. Come on, let me go pee and I'll be right back." He puts my back against the bed again and tries to shake me off him. "You're getting on my nerves. Get off me. I'll be right back. I don't want to cuddle with you right now, I want to take a piss."

"Let me cuddle with you!" I whine. He takes his arms from around my waist and starts to pry my legs off him. "Alex! Stop… I wanna cuddle!" I fall off of him and onto his bed. "Alex!"

"You are so annoying, my god." He leans down and kisses me on my lips. "I'll be right back and then we can cuddle as much as you want to cuddle. Let me pee." I poke my lip out and give him puppy-dog eyes. "Don't look at me like that." I poke my lip out further. "Don't be one of those clingy ass girlfriends. Don't do it."

"…I just wanna cuddle with my baby. I missed you…" I grab ahold of his pants and pull on them. "Gimme a kiss before you go." He sighs, rolls his eyes but walks back to kiss me. I hold his face to mine and kiss him like I mean it. "Hurry up."

"You're annoying." He walks out of his room and towards the direction of the bathroom.

I sigh and stand up when he leaves. I have my baby back and that's all I really care about in this moment. He's mine, I love him and he loves me and I'm not letting him go anywhere. There was honestly never any doubt in my mind about what I wanted. I always knew that I wanted him. I take my sweatpants off and pile them in the corner of his room. I adjust my underwear on my hips and climb into his bed. I pull the covers over myself and lie down on the pillow I always lay on when I sleep in his bed. My head hits something hard when I lie down, though. _What the hell… _I lift my head up and touch whatever my head hit. _Oh, his iPod. Hmmm. _I grab the iPod and slide my finger across the screen to unlock it.

I hold it up and tap on his music while I wait for him to come back from the bathroom. _I wonder what he's into…like really into. _I tap the "back" button so I can get out of the playlist that he's currently on so I can look through his entire library. _Wait…_ I look at the top of the screen and read the title of the playlist he was most recently listening to. _Jo's Playlist. _I have a playlist? I tap on it and of course, start reading through it. _I really don't recall ever making a playlist on his iPod. Did he make this? _I scan through the songs with my eyes.

1. Sweater Weather – The Neighborhood

2. Wonderwall – Oasis

3. Come On Get Higher – Matt Nathanson

4. Show Off – SoMo

5. Truly Madly Deeply – Savage Garden

6. Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic – Sleeping At Last

7. Your Body Is a Wonderland – John Mayer

8. Lego House – Ed Sheeran

9. All of Me – John Legend

10. Not a Bad Thing – Justin Timberlake

I have the biggest smile on my face right now. I can't even describe how big it is. He made an entire playlist of songs dedicated to me. _Didn't he say that he didn't want to be cheesy like April and Jackson? He told me that he'll never choose a couple's song for us, but he has an entire playlist. Why does he try to act like he's not a big softie? _I look over at his door and find that he's still not out of the bathroom yet. So I take a headphone and pop it in my ear so I can listen to some of the songs because there are a couple that I haven't heard before. I play the first song and listen to a couple lines of it.

_My head's in the clouds but my gravity's centered. Touch my neck and I'll touch yours. You and those little high-waisted shorts cause… she knows what I think about, what I think about one love, two mouths. One love, one house. No shirt, no blouse. Just us you found out, nothing that I wanna tell you about. _Even though I really like this song, I turn it off because I have nine more to skim through. I know Wonderwall, so I skip past it. I know Come On Get Higher, so I skip that one too. I've never heard of this next song, so I let it play it a little.

_Baby I just wanna show off. Come on baby take your clothes off. We can keep on bumping and grinding and loving so wildly, you know I wanna show off. Tonight I wanna show off, baby let me show off. I'm gonna take your legs up and wrap them and squeeze it then smack it you know I'm gonna show off. _Ok…ay. This one's a little… wow. But I kinda like it. But I just wonder what it's doing on my playlist. If it's a song about sex, I mean. Hmm.

"Hey babe, if you decide that you wanna take a shower when you get up, just let me know." He comes back into his room all unannounced and I hurry up and put his iPod away so he doesn't know that I was snooping around in it. There's obviously a reason why he didn't tell me that he made a playlist of songs about me so I'll just keep it confidential. "The shower's been acting weird lately and there's a certain way that you have to pull the little knob to turn it on." He takes off his shirt and his pants so that he's just in his boxers and crawls inside the bed right along with me. He smells like mint and aftershave, so I now know what took him so long to come back. He shaved and brushed his teeth.

"You shaved…" I touch his face and stroke his chin. "And you brushed your teeth. No fair. Your breath is all fresh and mine stinks."

"I love your stinky breath, though." He puts his hands on my back and pulls me a little bit closer to his body. "Goodnight, babe."

I put my head against his chest and close my eyes, listening to his heartbeat. "Night…" I sigh and put my hands against his arms.

* * *

As soon as I open my eyes, the first thing I notice is that I'm alone. I'm in his bed alone and he's not next to me. And that makes me really fucking sad for some reason. I hate when he does this. This is the second time he's done this to me. Why does he just leave me like that? Call me a baby, but I'm seriously about to start crying. I swear I hate it when he does this. I glance over at his bedside clock. It's 10:27 in the morning…we were sleep for two and a half hours or so. I rub my eye and sit up. "Alex…" I call his name as soon as I come fully to my senses. I wipe my damp cheek. I must've been drooling.

I look across the room and find him lying down on his couch playing a videogame. I stand up out of his bed and stretch myself out. I pick my underwear out of my butt because I had a wedgie and walk over to him. I'm freezing cold but I know if I put my sweatpants on that I'll be hot…and I'd rather be cold than hot at the moment. Maybe he'll give me a pair of shorts to throw on. "Why do you always leave me?" My sleepy toned voice comes out in something that mimics a childlike whine. "Why can't you ever just stay in the bed and hold me?" He keeps his attention on the videogame that he's busy with. I stand in front of the TV and hold my hands out to him. "Alex! Stop ignoring me…" I pull my shirt down so my panties are being covered but it's not big enough to keep them covered fully. "Why do you always leave me? Sometimes I just want you to hold me…"

"You were sleep." He mumbles. "And I wasn't gonna wake you up." He cocks his head around like he's trying to see. "Come on, babe… move. I'm in the middle of mission." I watch him pause the game on his controller. "I'm sorry I didn't stay in bed with you. But can you move?" I scratch my head and nod. He didn't leave me much room to sit down on the couch with him and it doesn't look like he's going to move anytime soon, so I hold onto the arm of the couch and brace myself to sit down on the floor. "Jo… Jo." He puts his controller down on the floor in front of him. "Come 'ere." He slides over on the couch.

"No, it's okay." I pull my knees into my chest and settle in to watch him play. "You told me a while ago how you get when you're playing videogames."

"Get your little ass over here." He made enough room for me to lay with him. "Come on." I stand up and lie down on the couch right along with him. I lay with my back turned to the TV and my face inside his chest. He grabs his controller and wraps his arms behind my back so he can play while I lay on him. "Are you cold? It's chilly in here…" I nod my head. He grabs a thick blanket off the back of his couch and puts it over me. He bends his one leg at the knee and puts it upright so I have enough room to lie next to him. After we both get situated, he resumes playing his game. I can feel his hands moving against my back.

I trace meaningless shapes against the smooth skin on his chest. I write my name on it with my index finger. "I wanna take a bath… but I can wait until you're done with your game." I whisper. I trace my fingers around his muscles and plant a single kiss on his chest. "Can you put the game away? I came here to spend time with you…"

"I'll put it away after I finish this…okay?" He rests his chin atop of my head and continues playing. "I'll put it away and start the shower for you."

**A/N: There's about to be some pretty HEAVY M rated language here. Don't read if you're sensitive to dirty words. I'm keeping it rather clean because this is still a T rated story. However, the content you're about to read is pretty heavy for a T rated story, but at the moment, I don't really care. It's the next to last chapter of this story and I'm just gonna let all the mature words just fly. So yeah... just a warning.**

"I was kinda hoping that you'd get in with me…" _Screw this videogame. I came here to spend time with my boyfriend and that's exactly what I'm going to do. _I sit up and grab his controller off him. "Put…the game…down." I pause it for him and put the controller on the coffee table. I move my hair to the side so that it's out of the way and straddle him. "You can play your stupid game after I'm done with you." I lean down and kiss his lips. "I'm sorry, but I didn't come here to lie around in bed with you and watch you play videogames all day." I run my fingers through his hair and kiss him again.

"Mmmm… okay, sorry." He puts his hands on my butt and starts to kiss me back. I put my hand against his chest and push him so that he's lying flat on his back and I'm on top of him, in complete control. I take my lips away from his and put them on his neck. He takes his hands away from my butt and slides them up my shirt. He puts one of his hands against my upper back and pushes me down so he can start kissing my neck. He's sucking on the spot right below my ear that drives me wild.

"…R…rules." I choke out through murmured pleasure. While he's kissing my neck, I'm busy curling my hands through his hair and trying to make sentences. "D…don't pull my hair, baby…" I lean up and take my shirt off. He helps me take it off and tosses it to the floor. "And don't…" He cuts my sentence off by kissing me on my boobs. "P…pin me down." With his face buried between my boobs, he reaches behind my back and unstraps my bra with ease. As soon as he unstraps it, my boobs spill out of the cups of my bra and into his hands. While he's kneading and kissing them, I toss my bra off the couch with my shirt. "Did you hear me?" I ask.

"Mhm." He mumbles, his face still buried deep in chest. His tongue circles around one of my boobs while he rubs the other with his free hand. I bite my lip and my hips involuntarily start to rock back and forth while I'm straddling him. I don't think I've ever wanted him this bad. Even though what he's doing feels really good, I grab ahold of his head and pull it back up to me. I kiss him so deeply that his head is smashed into the couch cushion. My hands wonder around below his waist, stopping at his thickening hardness. He sucks my tongue deeper into his mouth and grabs onto my waist. He starts pushing me away, letting me know that he wants to be on top of me. I shift my weight in a way that allows me to accept his weight.

I slide my hands through the elastic waistband of his boxers and wrap both of my hands around his erection. He gives me another deep kiss before he goes back down to my chest. His tongue deftly circles one of my nipples and my breathing hiccups for a moment when he does that. He massages my other boob with his hand while he occupies the one with his tongue. To let him know that I actually like what he's doing, I stroke my hand up and down, against him down below. He lifts his head away from my chest and switches his mouth to my other boob. I take one of my hands out of his boxers and use it to grip his hair. He's getting harder and harder as the time passes.

He takes his free hand away from my chest and slides it down my chest, past my stomach and to the rim of my underwear. With no further warning, he slips his hand completely down my panties and starts to rub me. I close my eyes tight and turn my head so it's inside the couch cushions so he can't see my face. He moves his hand in fast, wide, vigorous circles, which actually makes me let a moan slip out. I can't explain why, but I hate moaning and making noises with him. I feel so dumb when I do. And I know my moan is probably ugly, so I hate doing it. "Mmmm…" I bite my lip really hard and start breathing really heavy. He leans against me and kisses my neck. Again, without warning, he puts one—but only one, finger inside of me. "Ooooh…" I put my hand over my mouth to shut myself up. The more and more he darts his finger in and out, the more I can't control myself. I think he might actually get his wish today… I think I might actually have to scream.

He takes his finger out and puts both of his hands at the rim of my underwear. I lift my hips up so he can take them off. When I'm fully naked, I grab onto his boxers and take them off of him so he's naked as well. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him like I really, really mean it. I drag my teeth along his tongue and bite his bottom lip. _God, I need him. _He slides his hands down my body and gently lies me back down against the couch. I pull him down on top of me and kiss him some more. Real slow and careful, he guides himself inside me and eases it all the way in so he doesn't hurt me.

I throw my head back and roll my eyes back too. I put my hands flat against his back and rub it. I'm not sure how, but somehow I manage to stay quiet. He puts his head in the crook of my neck and gives me a million little soft kisses. Instead of grabbing my hands like he usually does just like I told him not to, he keeps his hands at my sides, his face buried in my neck and body at a nice distance off me so he's not bearing all his weight on me. He draws his bottom half back and makes one thrust in…and that one little thrust drives me crazy. "Uhhh…" That moan that just slipped out was pretty quiet, so I'm fine with it. I just don't want to be all loud and obnoxious. I rub his back. He moves his hands so that they're up underneath my legs. He leans up from my body to adjust himself. He parts my legs wider and lies back down flat on top of me. I wrap my legs around his waist and he makes a harder, deeper thrust this time. "Uhhhh….mmm…" I grab onto his hair because I don't know what else to do. I think he likes the fact that I'm making noise, because he just keeps thrusting, pumping in and out at that same pace. He starts kissing my neck and takes a break from actually thrusting for a second. He's lying against me, pelvis to pelvis so I know that it's all the way inside of me. Instead of thrusting, he just rocks back and forth while he's inside…which feels WAY better. "Oh..my…god…." I desperately make him kiss me on my lips so I can SHUT UP.

He pulls away from my mouth. "You can be as loud as you want to…" I shake my head and put his mouth back against mine. While I'm kissing him, he puts his hand underneath my leg, right where my knee bends. Aggressively, like he's mad at me or something, he puts my leg on his shoulder and starts to go really fast. I close my eyes and grab his back so tight that my nails dig into his skin. I mouth "oh my god" and start gasping. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep up with this whole "no moaning" thing.

He slowly…very slowly, pulls it out and kisses me on my lips with a smirk. _What's he smirking for? Oh crap. _I squeeze my eyes shut tight to bear with it. He's teasing me…bad. Instead of actually putting it in, he's just teasing me along the outside and it's kind of pissing me off to be honest. "Stop." I mumble. I tilt my face and bury it inside the couch cushion. "Mmmmm…. Alex, stop… I'm not gonna scream…" Like he doesn't even hear me or he's just ignoring me, he holds himself and keeps running it along the outside of me. "Mmmm…" I can't stop moaning at this point, though. And as if he's not already torturing me enough, he puts the tip…and ONLY the tip inside of me but takes it out. "Ahhhh! Fuck, I'm gonna kill you…" I finally look at his face. He's smirking. "It's not fucking funny."

"Maybe not…. but it's hot." He leans down and kisses me. His lips are still against my lips when down below, he just shoves it in real hard and real fast.

"OH…Shit…" I mutter and gasp at the sudden entrance. Again, I wrap my legs around his waist and something about this time is just…different. I think the first time he was actually doing it a couple minutes ago, he was just warming up. Because he's going so hard and so fast that the springs in the couch are making noise. I dig my nails deep into his back to bear with it. "Mmmm….. Because his mouth is still against mine, my moan went inside of his mouth. And he really...REALLY liked that. He puts one hand down there and starts teasing around the outside of me while he's still thrusting in and out. "Oh….my…." I bring my sweaty hand up to cover my face. _Whatever at this point. _"Oh… oh…. uh…."

He's grunting and kissing me on my lips all soft. It's a weird contradiction, because his kisses are soft but his movements below my waist are hard and jerky and really rough. I bite down on his bottom lip. He moves his kisses to my neck and collarbone and starts to slow down a little bit. His thrusting is getting slow but the rubbing he's doing with his hand is still really fast and wild and I'm about to… _Don't scream…don't scream. _I grit my teeth as I feel myself coming to that edge… _Please don't embarrass yourself by screaming. _I purse my lips. _…I can't help it. _I dig my nails deep into his back, lean up and bite his shoulder. I'm gonna… He pulls back away from my body to look at my face. "Ohhhh…. God…." Down below, he starts to stop rubbing me and… no. "No, baby… don't stop…" I whisper directly in his ear and yeah, he doesn't stop. "Uhhh…" _Don't be all loud and stupid with it. _"Ohhhh my god!" I reach above my head and grip the couch cushion. "Uhhhh huhh…. Oooohh…"

He stops moving and stuff when he knows that I just got mine. He pulls out just as he does as well and he discretely does it on my stomach again. I'm not holding it against him though. I love him and I don't really mind that he just did that. And I'm not freaking out as much as I did before about him pulling out instead of putting a condom on because I've been on my birth control pills long enough for them to be in full effect. So when the both of us finish, he lies on top of me. I reach behind him and put the blanket across the both of us. I hold him against my chest and rub his hair. "Love you…" I whisper to him.

Tired and out of breath, he nods and whispers it right back to me. "Love you too, babe." He closes his eyes and I keep stroking his hair while he lies on top of me. I kiss the top of his head and let him rest.

"Can we just do this all day?" I scratch through his scalp with my fingernails because I know he likes it. "I'm ready for round two."

"…You're wild." He chuckles. "You're ready for round two and I'm tired." He puts his head up and kisses the underside of my chin before resting his head back against my chest. "Round two in the shower?" He asks. I nod. "Are you okay, though?"

"Hmm?" I mumble. "Mhm." I nod again. "I'm fine baby…" I stop stroking his hair and pull the blanket up so it's covering his entire back. "You can rest for a little while… I'm gonna rest to."

"Okay."

* * *

**A/N: **Okay, so like I said... this is the second to last chapter. The next update will be the end of the story :( but the good news is that I plan on writing another Jolex story :) I already have the first chapter of it drafted out. They're residents(all residents. no attendings) in this story and I will be including Alex's point of view in this one. I must say that the story I'm working on is unlike any story I've seen done in Jolex stories just yet. So I'm excited to post it. The new story will be strictly M rated, however. STRICTLY M rated. So with that being said, how do you guys feel about smut?

Do you like smut? Do you dislike smut? Do you not mind smut, as long as it's not too dirty? Do you like really dirty smut? I just want to know how you guys feel about it for my next story. I'd appreciate it if you guys would let me know in reviews or PMs or something. Thanks.


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